Hooray for Paper Patchwork!

The look of a patchwork quilt... in a jiffy.

The folded triangular edging is called Prairie Points (or Somerset Patchwork).

You can engineer where the Prairie Points fall to make fancy closures.

Double layer of Prairie Points.

Get the point! Free Prairie Point download below.

Paper Patchwork is the ideal way to use up small quantities of paper from your stash. It looks great in mixed prints. A dead ringer for its fabric-crafted counterpart. These cards have a couple of quick-make secrets. First of all, the traditional quilt block designs are made using my new papercraft template for Hot Off The Press, Paper Patchwork HOTP 7411. Instead of cutting out lots of small pieced shapes, as for fabric patchwork, the quilt blocks are made of larger layered shapes. The shapes for the top layer of the motif are linked all-in-one to speed the cutting process. Here's the template:

The other secret is in the Prairie Point borders, which are easy to make from notched paper strips, download below. There are also downloads for the patchwork house motif and the card sentiments. Here they are:
PrairiePoints.pdf
PrairiePoints.svg 

LabelsPaperPatchworkCards.pdf

Here's how to make the Prairie Points:

A small metal ruler makes accurate folding a cinch.

1) Cut out the Prairie Point strips. The vertical snips are the most important bit. Next, fold the diagonals using a metal ruler as an alignment guide (it helps you make the bases of the triangles level).

2) Next, glue the tabs on the triangles. A tiny dab of tacky glue does the job. That's it. Your Praire Points are done. As you can see, there's a border strip below the triangle points. You can either slip the border strip underneath the edge of your card, or you can position it on top of the card front and camouflage the strip with contrast trim. The speedy way to attach the Prairie Points to your card is with d/s tape.

Here's how to make paper patchwork, pronto:

1) Cut out the shapes.

2) Layer the shapes. You can glue them with tacky glue or fix them together with d/s tape. Camouflage the link in the middle of the uppermost patchwork shape with a smaller contrasting shape - or with one of my printables. Simple! The finishing touch: mock stitching drawn with a Zig Millenium fine-point pen.

Make a dinky card from just one patchwork block!

The printed papers are from a 6 x 6 paper pad: Times & Seasons from Echo Park Paper Co.

The HOTP template also has the Orange Peel pattern - which can be used to make mock Cathedral Window patchwork. And a hexagon shape, which can be used to make the Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt design. But that's another post...