Lantern Lane ~ A Love Affair with Paper Piecing

Since the beginning of my quilting journey, I've loved foundation paper piecing. I learned the technique very early on, and because I was told by the instructor that it was easy and forgiving, I believed her. Since then, I've always seen it as the gateway to perfect points intricate piecing.

And so, when I saw Lantern Lane by Sassafras Lane, I knew I had to make it. I could see the inspiration of Chinese lanterns so clearly, and I also immediately knew what I wanted to use for the fabric: a collection from Connecting Threads called Captiva. It consists of blues, yellows, grays, and I've been saving it for a while waiting for the perfect pattern, and this was it!

I usually take the time to pre-perforate the paper, but this time it would have taken far too long. So I dug out my tracing wheel from my brief stint as a garment sewer to perforate it. It worked really well, except it left some marks on my cutting mat that doesn't seam to "heal". It didn't seem to affect the cutting mat's function, at least.

And here are the blocks, so perfect! Originally I was very worried about having to match so many points, but this pattern was brilliant in the way it's assembled and pressed, so that everything seam locks together perfectly with little effort.

Here's a little sample of the rows I assembled so far. The whole quilt will have 49 blocks, but I'm so loving how it looks so far!