Foundation Paper Piecing Series 3 - March

Published February 2026

Join Jen as she shares how to make the Foundation Paper Piecing 3 design for March! This beginner friendly project is bursting with St. Patrick's Day cheer! Two shamrocks in marbled greens frame a beautiful rainbow shining over a pot of gold. Perfect for brightening up a cozy space, this seasonal piece looks stunning on the 8" French Curl Craft Holder, available below.

Our convenient kits include all fabrics needed to make the project including backing and binding as well as a full-color pattern, printed foundation papers & stickers to label your fabric! Explore the first Foundation Paper Piecing Series & see the links for everything you need!

In this video, you'll learn:

• Why foundation paper piecing feels unintuitive at first — and the section-by-section, sticker-labeled system that makes it click.
• The single most common beginner mistake: gluing your first piece pretty-side up instead of pretty-side down.
• How the Add-A-Quarter ruler set takes the guesswork out of trimming a seam allowance, using its tapered edge and locking lip instead of measuring by eye.
• The trim-sew-press (TSP) rhythm, plus a shortened 1.5mm stitch length that perforates the paper for cleaner removal later.
• Why it pays to wait until borders are added before tearing away any foundation paper, and how gypsy tweezers rescue the corners your fingers can't reach.

Check the links for everything you need.

Introduction

This is the final project in Foundation Paper Piecing Series 3, and it brings together a rainbow, a pot of gold, and a pair of shamrocks in a striped Riley Blake binding and a coin-print fabric that finally found its purpose. If foundation paper piecing has ever felt like it just wasn't clicking, you're not alone — it's genuinely not an intuitive technique. This walkthrough is a full refresher on the process, whether you're piecing a small three-piece section or a much larger one.

It's not you — foundation paper piecing just isn't intuitive. Plenty of quilters try it once, decide they're bad at it, and set it aside. The truth is this technique just takes a proper walkthrough. Once you catch the rhythm, it's one of the most satisfying ways to piece a block.

Kits include a well-tested, full-color pattern along with the exact fabrics shown, so your first step after opening your kit is identifying and labeling each fabric — green one, green two, green three, and so on.

Cutting and Organizing Your Fabric

Foundation paper piecing lives or dies on staying organized, and the system built into these patterns makes that simple.

1. Press and add sizing to your fabric before cutting, just as you would for any patchwork project.
2. Make your first cut — labeled C1 on your pattern — then place the matching numbered sticker directly on that piece of fabric.
3. Continue cutting and stickering each piece in order. Letters group pieces by section (each section builds a different part of the design — the rainbow, the pot of gold, a shamrock), while the numbers tell you the order those pieces go down within that section.

Gluing Your First Piece

Every section starts the same way: the lowest-numbered piece in that section always goes down first, secured with a glue pen rather than a pin.

1. Turn your fabric pretty side down against the back of your paper pattern — this trips up more beginners than almost anything else in the process, so it's worth double-checking before you commit.
2. Run a line of glue on the paper, then place your fabric so it covers the entire footprint of that section plus a quarter inch of margin all the way around.
3. A light box or light pad makes this easy to check; without one, simply hold your paper up to a light source to confirm your coverage.

The Add-a-Quarter Plus and the TSP Rhythm

From here, the process repeats for every remaining piece in the section, and the Add-A-Quarter ruler set is what makes each step fast and accurate.

1. Fold the paper back along the next sewing line, and lay the ruler's tapered edge just to the left of that fold — its locking lip hooks right into the fold to hold it in place while you trim away the excess paper and fabric underneath.
2. Take your next numbered piece, position it right sides together with your trimmed edge, and hold the unit up to the light to confirm it covers a full quarter inch beyond the seam line before flipping it over and pinning.
3. Sew with a shortened 1.5mm stitch length — shorter than a typical 2.5mm default — which perforates the paper more densely and helps stabilize the block once that paper comes out later. A Schmetz Microtex Sharp 70/10 needle pairs well with this fine stitch.
4. Start your stitching just before the drawn line and finish just past it on interior seams — a small amount of overlap that's easy to trim away later, since it's only ever sewn through paper that will eventually be removed.
5. Press the seam open — trim, sew, press, or “TSP,” is the rhythm you'll repeat for every piece in the section, whether it has six pieces or twenty.

No iron handy? Reach for a Clover Roll & Press instead. At a retreat with several quilters sharing one iron, a Clover Roll & Press lets you keep moving without waiting in line — simply substitute it for the pressing step in your TSP rhythm.

Joining Sections Without Measuring

Once each section is fully pieced, trim it along its outermost line on a cutting or spinning mat — and resist the urge to remove the paper here. It stays in place for now, since it's doing important stabilizing work while you continue assembling the block.

1. When two sections join, look for the quarter-inch line already drawn where they meet — there's no need to measure or mark your own seam allowance.
2. Stack the two sections right sides together and sew directly on that pre-drawn line. The pattern has already done the work of locating your exact quarter inch.
3. Press seams following the arrows printed on your pattern.

Adding the Laser-Cut Shape

The gold coins in this project arrive prefused and laser cut, ready to place.

1. Crease the shape firmly to release its paper backing.
2. Position it visually where it looks right — there's no exact science to this placement — then press with a medium-heat iron to fuse it down.
3. Hold off on stitching around the shape for now; quilting through it later, along with the batting or fusible fleece beneath, gives it a raised, embossed look once the project is finished.

Why You Wait to Remove the Paper

Once your main block is complete, continue building the rest of the project — piecing the second shamrock, adding sashing, sewing the blocks together, and attaching your borders — all before removing a single scrap of foundation paper.

1. Leaving the paper in place through all of this stabilizes each block while there's still a great deal of bias in play from the angled piecing.
2. Once your borders are on, tear the paper away section by section, using your fingers where you can reach.
3. For tight corners and nooks your fingers can't get into, gypsy tweezers reach in cleanly to pull out every last scrap.

Quilting and Binding

With the paper removed, layer your batting or fusible fleece and backing, then quilt.

1. Stitch through the block's seams and directly through the laser-cut shape to lock everything in place and add dimension — a nice alternative to a simple stitch-in-the-ditch when you want your thread choices to show.
2. Finish with your binding — a striped fabric like the one used here adds a lot of energy to a project that might otherwise call for a much plainer edge.

That wraps up Foundation Paper Piecing Series 3 — and if this technique has ever felt intimidating, hopefully this refresher on the fundamentals makes it feel like something worth trying again. Series 4 is already underway.

Pick up an Add-A-Quarter ruler set of your own along with any other notions you need, and get ready for Foundation Paper Piecing Series 4.

For personal use only, not for commercial production. No part of this pattern may be reproduced, shared, or distributed in any form unless given express written consent by Shabby Fabrics. Not to be used with any online classes or video tutorials other than the official Shabby Fabrics tutorial. All designs, photographs, and images are protected by federal copyright law. All rights reserved.