I finished my month 2 work today but still working on my custom month 1 block. Just wanted to say I found Julie Cefalu's suggestions for cutting for paper piecing perfect. Julie cut piece 1 -- 2" square. For pieces 2-5, Julie cut a square 2 1/4", then cut it in half diagonally. Easy to place, not too much excess and worked well.

I did use an add an eighth ruler for the paper piece blocks to decrease bulk. It was easy and no problems -- I paper piece as Julie demonstrated.

Julie suggested keeping the paper templates large -- I will have to say I'm a fan of trimming my templates to about an eighth of an inch large and that worked great. Too much paper seems to get in my way.

One last tip -- I always trim my pieces by placing my ruler on the sew line and trimming a quarter inch away. I love the Creative Grids ruler that look like they have a stitch line at a quarter inch. Sew line (paper foundation) to sew line (ruler) and I never have a size issue with my completed blocks.

So glad to see this note about printer settings. Your explanation was so clear! I had discovered how far off my default setting is and wanted to share how really important it is to fix this tiny discrepancy which multiplies fast and can really throw things off. Great to see how quickly this reminder was posted.

Tip about accurate template printing:

When I printed out my foundation paper pieces my printer default was in "fit to page" -- my foundation was a tad smaller than one inch -- barely noticeable but across a block it was 1/16th of an inch shorter so across nine blocks that would have been about 1/2" short (it adds up fast). Turning off "fit to page" solved the problem.

Month 2 is posted.

This month we are creating the diamond-in-a-square border around the central block. There are foundations for paper piecing and English Paper piecing techniques. The instructions for foundation paper piecing and English paper piecing were included in the Introduction Packet

thequiltshow.com/learn/downloads-for-classes/category/72-bom-2016?download=1174:bom-2016-intro

Included in month 2 (under the header Cutting) are the instructions for cutting larger pieces (borders) for month 4 and month 7. There are also instructions for cutting the binding in month 2.

The History story is continuing also -- I think that is such a neat feature.

The video by Julie is how to do foundation paper piecing. Julie uses the template featured in month 2.
Julie cut piece 1 -- 2" square. For pieces 2-5, Julie cut a square 2 1/4", then cut it in half diagonally.