I'm an all by hand quilter. I've only finished one baby Churn Dash quilt but I have a Cathedral Windows (a black one) and an Applecore charm quilt each about half pieced. I can tell you that Kaffe Fassett's "Museum Quilts....quilts inspired by the Victoria and Albert Museum" has a lovely clamshell quilt in it. It shows both the original from the V and A, and Fassett's version of it. I managed to buy two copies of this book. I don't know how that happened....but it also has a page in the back explaining how to paper piece it. They say you only baste the top long curves to the paper piece, and two bottom seam lines are just traced lightly on the right side. That way you can easily see how to overlap them. Also, they suggest you pin the paper basted peices to cardboard or corkboard to be sure they get perfectly aligned and in straight rows. Then they want you baste along the top of each row and remove the pins as you go. Theirs is worked in 7x7 piece blocks and then each diamond block is joined with 1/2 inch bias sashing. I have an acrylic template that I rotary cut all my 498 applecore pieces with, and another one without the seam allowance that I use to trace my stitch line on each piece as I go along. I LOVE MY APPLECORE! I've really missed working on it in the push to finish the baby quilt before the baby's three month party. A hand pieced, hand quilted quilt is a LONG TERM relationship, and I am excited to see each piece again as I pull them from the stacks. Deeply satisfying, as I chose 500 different fabrics at the start and spent weeks arranging them on my living room design wall.

I always leave the paper on until the entire block is done. I really can't picture what you mean by stitching around the perimeter to keep the edges together. You should have stitched your pieces beyond the cutting line of the block--the stitches being very small, when you are done and you cut all the excess off around the cutting line/perimeter you should be ok. You clip the seams very close to the stitching so I don't think you need to press them open but you could. Sometimes I leave the paper on when joining the blocks but most of the time it is almost falling off and sometimes something has to match in which case I would remove the seams area. I hope this is somewhat clear and helpful. The Carol Doak book read very carefully really helped me. Best of luck. Geri

Jan, I think the black and white really helped. I made the same block for someone in red and yellow and I hated the results so much I ended up making a replacement. It lacked the 3-D" effect which was my goal with the pattern, plus despite being PP I didn't sew it right and the points were too close to the edge and it would not lie flat... But the black and white one I was rather pleased with, if I may say so myself... I'm sure there are already a lot of patterns very similar to that one out there, but it does feel kind of special to think you "designed the block yourself!"

I have used a couple patterns from Chickadee Charms, one is called 'Steadfast Stead' and the other is 'Horse Happy'. They are not paper pieced or foundation pieced, just pieced, but they go together very nicely.