V and Co: adventures in paper piecing

 so what do you do when you feel like you have SO much on your plate, that you don't even know where to begin?
well, if you are me, you put aside some of the super pressing deadlines you've put upon yourself (along with things you said you would do so they are actually other people's deadlines as well) and you totally dive in and learn a new trade, and fall hard, fast in passion with it.
yup, talking about paper piecing.
holy crap! where have you been all my sewing career? um right under my freaking nose apparently and i just didn't know how awesome it was.

 when faith was here i asked her to take a minute of her time to just show me a little bit of how to do her magic trickery of absolute coolness that is called paper piecing. yeah yeah, so a lot of you already know how to do it, or have been doing it for decades yadda yadda yadda. but this was my first time EVER giving it a try, and let me tell you. it's opened up a WHOLE NEW WORLD people. i almost feel like i just want to try and try and try different things. it's kind of cool. and it makes certain designs actually easy to do.

SO, here's faith's instructions on how to paper piece, i had to look at it like a hundred times before my brain finally did a click (because even though she showed me in person...for some reason my brain is mush from too many other things and it took me a couple times looking and trying to finally get it. again. :)

 i drew up my super simple design and added the 1/4" seam she tells you to, and then i picked out my colors. (yes, COLOR! I LOOOOOOOOVE COLOR right now! monochromatic, ombre, shades that look awesome together you name it i'm playing with it! whole other post coming up on that.)

 and then i started. i cut out my fabric a little bigger i normally would need to because it's all still kind of new to me, and i'm still wetting my feet.

 and then i messed up because i forgot i was suppose to do it "backwards" but looking at faith's instructions really helped me train my brain...and then well WATCH OUT I GOT ALL AWESOME!

 and ended up making a silly looking thing like this...ooooh but wait it's just because i hadn't trimmed my edges!

 turn it around trim it up, aaaaaaannnnnnd.....

BAM! yeah that's what i'm talking about. that right there made my day.
do you even know how long i've had something close to that little block drawn up in my little book of drawings? like years. never knew how i would accomplish it...and there i did it in like 5 minutes.

 i had a little bit of extra time (hahahaha! hmmm) and made it into a little pincushion. yup. so cute. then i went and picked up girl noisemaker from school and got other noisemakers doing homework, and ready for soccer...when little miss girl noisemaker finds said adorable pincushion and SQUEELS:
"CAN I HAVE IT?!"
"sure what you gonna do with it?"
this is what she did:

yup, one of my hand warmers, and now my pin cushion are making for a really cute set up for her barbie's furniture...perhaps a very small quilt is in order next?
hmmmmmmm...
hey faith: you think i could make really small blocks of your summer sampler? 
:D