Quilt-along: Taking the paper backing off

This is one of a series of posts for the Urban Lattice Quilt-along. Join us any time! Many are starting their quilts after the holidays. Be sure to visit our flickr group.

If you've completed the other steps up to now, you should have all your blocks sewn and trimmed with the paper backing still on. In today's post, I'm going to walk you through how to take the paper backing off.

I have a lot of pictures illustrating this, not because it is hard but because I'm a visual learner and I feel that many tutorials lack enough visuals. It's probably overkill but since a number of you have expressed nervousness about paper piecing, I didn't want you to stress about removing the paper from your stitching.

Determine your block placement
Before you do anything, lay your blocks out and finalize the way you want to sew them together.  

Because it is so easy to get the blocks mixed up, I like to label my blocks so I remember where they go. I do this by writing on the very middle of the back of the paper (more on that later). I like to use a number for the row and a letter for the placement in that row -- 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E, 2A, 2B, etc.

 

Tearing the paper

The most important part of this step is to turn on a good TV show or some music because it's a tad boring and monotonous. You might also bribe an older child or husband into doing this step for you. :)

To remove the paper backing, start with the triangle corners. Fold the paper back and bend it at the line of stitching. Finger press it down. You might also want to bend it back the other way as well like I show below. 

Next, you're going to carefully tear it out like you would a check or a page in a notebook. Since you used a short stitch length, your stitches should hold tight and this should be fairly easy. Still, go slow. 

Lila assisted me since my other hand was holding the camera.

Next you'll slide you fingers underneath the paper and carefully lift the paper.

Now you'll bend back the trapezoid, creasing at the next line of stitching. 

Baby with stainless steel salad tongs is not required for this step.

Once you've adequately creased the stitching line, tear it away. (At this point if you have a toddler, you can task them with making things with the triangles and trapezoids that will begin to litter your floor.)

 

You're almost done!  You're now left with the center strip, which you may remember has some glue under it. 

 

Starting from one of the ends, carefully lift out the center strip of paper but, if you've labeled your block, leave that part intact until the very end when your quilt top is sewn together.

 

Sometimes, paper will stick where you had the glue.  Don't panic. Just scrap off what you can with your fingernail or whatever.

 

Don't worry if you can't get it all off. Ted's quilt has a bunch of paper bits quilted into it and you can't tell at all. The only exception to this might be if you are using a white or cream or otherwise really light colored lattice fabric. Then you might want to work at those bits a bit more because they might show through the fabric when it's washed and quilted. Maybe. It's just a hypothesis.

 

And there you have it.  That's how you take the paper backing off. 

You're now ready to sew your blocks together. Exciting!  I'll post about that hopefully next week after I've had a moment to get my quilt top started but you can obviously blaze ahead without me -- there's no trick to sewing two square blocks together!

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to comment on this post, email me directly, or post a topic in the flickr group. Thanks!