EPP Video Tutorial: Diamonds – A Tale of 2 ‘Tails’

In this tutorial you will be taught all the ‘Ins and Outs’, the ‘Do’s and Don’ts’ of English Paper Piecing (EPP) with Diamond paper pieces.

Starting with the most popular Diamond type, the 60 degree (or 6-point) Diamond Nancy will guide you through preparing and cutting the fabric for your Diamond paper pieces (⏯️ 1.16) and explain thread colour choices (⏯️ 3.19).

There are a quite a few important tips when folding over the fabric on your diamond shapes (⏯️ 3.45), especially how to deal with the ‘points’ on the paper pieces (⏯️ 6.19).

Nancy shows how to cover the papers with the Thread-basting method where the tacking stitches are done through all the layers (including the paper piece) before you are shown how to sew the covered shapes together (⏯️6.44). You start with how to thread the needle (⏯️7.00) in a different way and then sew the Diamonds into a ‘Star’ shape. Be shown how to deal with the ‘Tails’ as you sew (⏯️ 12.07) and how to cast off (⏯️11.24).

Nancy explains the importance of the direction the tails are folded in and shows a good strategy for sewing a Star (⏯️12.48). Once the Star is complete you are shown how to turn the Star into a Hexagon block (⏯️15.23) and how little clips can help in the process.

Finally, learn how to remove the paper pieces at the end (⏯️19.04). Towards the end of the tutorial Nancy briefly explains the origin of the ‘degree’ number of Diamonds (⏯️20.14) and the difference between 60 and 45 degree diamonds (8-point) (⏯️20.50) and their ‘tessellations’(⏯️21.21). Sometimes it may be necessary to trim the fabric excess of the tails (⏯️22.56), here we show you how to do it safely.

You will also learn about other, more specialised types of Diamonds, like 5-point and 10-point ones (⏯️24.09) and how they differ.

Lastly Nancy also shows the look of other paper pieces with one or more ‘points’, like Triangles and Jewels (⏯️25.30). In a nutshell, this tutorial will teach you all about the importance of the direction the tails on the points are folded in for EPP and what to look out for, so that nothing will stand in your way to create the most beautiful projects yourself.


Further viewing: