Little Houses, Tips, and NTT

Happy Needle and Thread Thursday, friends!  Well, I quilted and quilted... and quilted, and finally got my Little Houses quilt all finished.

The all-over super dense spirals give the quilt so much delicious texture.  I used 50 wt. Aurifil thread in Dove Gray, which amazingly blends into all of the colors and background perfectly.  It's magical like that!

On the back, I used up all of my leftovers along with a wide strip of low volume fabric to widen it out.  Originally, I thought this would be a scrap project, but that was not to be.  I was able to pull scraps for things like windows, doors, and sidewalks but I needed to use stash fabric for the main part of the house, roof, sky, and landscaping for each house.  I quickly realized that because I piece my quilt backings from leftover fabric so often, I just don't have very many larger pieces of scrap fabric, which is actually a good thing!  (ps- don't mind the extra hanging wire.  I use the lower wire for photographing smaller quilts)

And I decided to finish it off with a scrappy low volume binding, which blends right into the quilt.  

I always love the way the quilting shows up on the back!  This quilt finished at 66" x 72", and I think it's going to hang on the wall in my family room.  I have something else hanging there right now, which means that I have to shuffle some things around, but that's the plan!

I've had several emails asking for a tutorial for these houses, and unfortunately, because they were sewn completely using improvisation, I can't really do that.  I can give you some tips though!

1.  Use a good frontal photo of the house.  Frontal views are easier to replicate than trying to navigate the odd angles in a view which shows more than one side of the house.

2.  Start with the windows.  Decide whether you'll make them plain squares/rectangles, whether you'll give each window a border, and whether they'll have grid lines.  I have all three types of windows in this quilt, and I just made the decision based on the house I was sewing.  Keep in mind that adding borders or grid lines will make the windows larger, and therefore will make the finished house larger, which brings me to the second point-

3.  Scale is EVERYTHING.  The size of your windows will determine pretty much everything else.  Use the width and height of the window to determine how much space there should be somewhere else.  When I was determining how far apart to make something, I would look at the photo and ask myself, "Is this space wider than the width of the window, or more narrow?"  That helped me determine how to space the features in the houses.

4.  Press often, and use plenty of starch (or starch alternative).  When sewing details like this, crisply pressed pieces will make the process easier.

5.  Divide the house into chunks.  Pretty much every house has places where it can be divided into smaller, more manageable pieces.  With two-story houses, sew the top and bottom stories separately, and then put them together, or on one-story homes, the placement of windows and the door can help you decide how to divide it up.

6.  Don't be afraid to sew a larger piece of fabric than you need and just trim it down to size.  It's a little more wasteful, but the results are better.  This is especially helpful when sewing odd angles for the roof lines.  I used scissors to cut the angles on the roofs.  Then, I sewed larger rectangles of fabric to the cut side, which gave me plenty of fabric for squaring up.

7.  Make friends with your seam ripper.  It is what it is, friends.  I ripped out lots of stitches on these houses when something didn't come out exactly as I wanted.  I had to make peace with the fact that sometimes it was necessary to rip out, trim fabric, make little adjustments, and try it again until I was happy with it.

8.  Get comfortable sewing small.  I didn't do it on every house, but I love the look of trim on the windows and roof line.  It gives depth to the houses, and a little extra oomph.  To do that though, I started with strips that were reeeeeally narrow.  I cut everything by hand, which is why the trim pieces aren't consistent in width, but they all finish somewhere between 1/4" and under 1/2".  I like the look of inconsistent borders.  It gives the houses a bit of a funky, handmade look.

9.  Choose solid or tonal fabrics, and make sure you have plenty of contrast within the components of the house.  These pieces have so many smaller elements that they would get completely lost with busier fabrics.

10.  And finally, have fun and let go of perfection!  These houses are an artistic representation of a house.  They're not meant to be perfectly precise or perfectly to scale.  That's part of their charm!

I absolutely LOVED making this quilt, from start to finish.  You should give it a try with your own home!

Now it's time to check out the awesomeness from last week's party.  This quilt by Sew Preeti Quilts is so much fun!

This simple, sweet quilt is by Better 'n Dog Biscuits-

And finally, Frederique at Quilting Patchwork Applique' showed off this fun quilt.  Love all of the cheerful colors!

With so many tips above, I feel like this post is a bit long, so I'm holding the highlights to only three this week (though I could have chosen several more!).

So without further ado, let's get to the party!

1. You can link finished projects or WIP's , but just keep it about quilting and sewing!

2. Link to your specific post (not to your home page!) to make it easier for others.

3. Please remember to spread the word and post my button or a text link within your 

    post.  

4. Spread the comment love far and wide!

5. Following me is not a requirement to link, but is so very appreciated!

*If you're new to the party, here's a helpful tip for linking up- select "Auto Crop"  when selecting your thumbnail photo.  For some reason, trying to crop your own image results in the dreaded "white question mark box," and we definitely want to see your awesome work!  :)

NTT- Improv All the Way

Welcome to NTT, y'all!  My improv house quilt top is all finished, and let me just say that I LOVE it so much!

When it's time to fit nine different-sized blocks together, improv is the answer.  When I first started thinking about how to put them together, I played around in my design program and even tried using graph paper.  Both of these were doable, but made the whole process way more complicated than it needed to be.  

The problem is that each of these blocks is different, and they are all oddly sized.  When I made the houses, I squared them up but didn't trim them to whole or even half inch sizes.  So really, the only way to  put them together without too much fuss was to continue the improv run.  I played around with the layout until the quilt looked balanced, and just started piecing my low volume fabric chunks to the blocks to fit them to each other.  I did use my rotary cutter to make sure that the background fabric pieces were cut straight, but didn't measure.  Instead, I just cut a piece that I knew would be big enough and trimmed away the excess width/length as needed.  And I constructed the quilt in horizontal thirds, so there were no partial seams.

The low volume prints lend just enough texture and interest to the quilt, but let each unique house really shine.  Plus, I think this background adds just the right amount of quirkiness to the quilt.  I have the quilt all basted and ready to quilt, and I can't wait to get started on it!

Okay friends!  Before we party, check out some of last week's eye candy.  Anja Quilts linked up this beautiful quilt-

Turid at Den syende himmel shared this fun quilt-

Check out this beauty by Quilting Gail-

And finally, this stunner by Leanne at Devoted Quilter is a Make Modern cover girl!

Wow!  Y'all are really bringing the inspiration!  I can't wait to see what you link up this week.  Before we party though, I owe you a giveaway winner!

The winner of a $25 gift certificate to Lady Belle Fabric is Kathleen, comment number 45!  Congrats, Kathleen!

Okay, friends, let's get our party on! 

1. You can link finished projects or WIP's , but just keep it about quilting and sewing!

2. Link to your specific post (not to your home page!) to make it easier for others.

3. Please remember to spread the word and post my button or a text link within your 

    post.  

4. Spread the comment love far and wide!

5. Following me is not a requirement to link, but is so very appreciated!

*If you're new to the party, here's a helpful tip for linking up- select "Auto Crop"  when selecting your thumbnail photo.  For some reason, trying to crop your own image results in the dreaded "white question mark box," and we definitely want to see your awesome work!  :)

More Houses and NTT

Welcome to Needle and Thread Thursday, y'all!  I've been sewing more houses this week, and even remade my current house.  It was the very first house I sewed, and there were just too many little "issues" with it that would bug me as time went on.  Plus, as I went along in the process, I started making the houses a little bigger.  It just didn't seem right for our current house to be so puny in comparison.  So, here's the new and improved version!

I decided to go ahead and make all twelve windows across the front of the house (it's one of the architectural features I love the most), and also changed the color scheme (we have a plan for new windows and paint soon).  Even with all of the little tricks I learned as I sewed more and more houses, that double gable was still really tough!  With all of those windows across the front, this one is now the biggest of all, which is guess is fitting since it's our current home.  

I also sewed my grandparents' house...

as well as our family's lake house.  The real version has cedar shakes and a corrugated tin roof, and I had fun using these prints to mimic that a little bit.  

My sister's house has an interesting combination of siding and brick and was fun to sew-

And finally. my parents' house, which was by far the most difficult because of all the trim work.  I couldn't figure out how to make the spindles on the upper balcony with the windows and door behind them, so I just left them off and just added the top and bottom railing instead.  I don't think the block really misses them either.  And I left off the garage (which would be to the right) because the block was just getting too wide.

Originally, I had plans to make about twelve houses, but I have been laying them out on my design wall as they are finished and I can see that nine really is plenty.

By the way, props to my husband who helped me get my new design wall up.  In my last house, my studio was in my dining room, which had a chair rail on the wall that stuck out quite a bit.  So my design wall there was only one sheet of foam board and was never big enough.  Since this room doesn't have that obstruction, my design wall can now go from floor to ceiling.  Hooray!

I'm pondering the layout for these blocks, as well as the background fabric and then I will start to fit them together.  They are all irregular sizes and no two are exactly the same size, so that should be interesting!  

Without further ado, let's take a look at a few highlights from last week's party.  Look at this stunner by Rebecca Grace Quilting-

Nanette at A Passionate Quilter From Texas shared these beautiful applique blocks-

These sweet granny squares are by Gretchen's Little Corner-

I'm loving this HRT quilt by Cynthia at Quilting is More Fun Than Housework-

And finally, Jayne at Twiggy and Opal linked up this striking table runner-

Wow, friends!  Y'all sure know how to bring the eye-candy!  I can't wait to see what awesomeness you have going on this week.  Bring it!

1. You can link finished projects or WIP's , but just keep it about quilting and sewing!

2. Link to your specific post (not to your home page!) to make it easier for others.

3. Please remember to spread the word and post my button or a text link within your 

    post.  

4. Spread the comment love far and wide!

5. Following me is not a requirement to link, but is so very appreciated!

*If you're new to the party, here's a helpful tip for linking up- select "Auto Crop"  when selecting your thumbnail photo.  For some reason, trying to crop your own image results in the dreaded "white question mark box," and we definitely want to see your awesome work!  :)

NTT- A Fun New Project

Happy Needle and Thread Thursday, friends!  I actually have lots going on in my studio this week, and I am so excited to share it with you.  I decided that since I can't stand and cut fabric for very long, I would make something using improv which doesn't require it.  For the past several days I've been sewing improv houses.

Rather than making a bunch of generic houses, I decided to start with houses that are special to me.  This is our first house in Texas.  Our son was born during the time we lived here, and we ended up moving when he was three, so all of the memories of his babyhood are tied up in this house.  We loved this house and thought we would live here much longer, but life and job changes just happen.  And a photo of it for reference-

And our first house here in Tennessee, which we also loved, but it was a little close to a busy street and over time, the traffic just got busier-

This house sits on a corner and I couldn't immediately find a completely frontal view of it (or a view that wasn't snowy), but you get the idea.

And finally, our current house.  It is tucked into a quiet neighborhood and has much more space than either of the two other homes we've owned.  From the street, it looks smaller than our second home, but looks can be deceiving!  It has plenty of room for my studio to have its own non-shared space (it was a converted dining room in our other home), and plenty of room for our son to have his own space upstairs too (teens appreciate that).  And with our master bedroom downstairs in this house, we plan for this one to be our forever home.  PS- those gables were NO JOKE.

And a photo of this one for reference too!  The main difference in this block from the actual house is the windows.  Rather than sew sets of skinny windows, I opted to just do single, larger windows to represent them.  And we have plans to take the shutters off the center set of windows, so I didn't include those.

I also sewed the two houses that my husband and I grew up in.  Neither of our parents still live in these houses, so Google Earth pics are the only ones I could find right away, and they're pretty grainy.  You'll just have to take my word for it that these are pretty good representations.  :)

My husband's childhood home-

and mine!-

Sewing these houses has been SO much fun!  I have dumped all of my scraps out on my work table, keeping them in color piles so I can dig through and find what I want.  Everything has been cut using scissors only, just using the rotary cutter to straighten my block edges a little bit at the very end.  I'm appreciating the less-than-perfect improv look.

My plan is to make about twelve houses.  I have plans for a few more significant houses, and then I'll fill it in with some generic ones.  Then I just have to figure out how to fit them all together!

Y'all shared some fantastic things at last week's party!  I love this simple but beautiful quilt by Something Rosemade-

Check out this beauty by Rebecca Grace Quilting-

This one by Donnaleeq is gorgeous!

Andree' at Quilting and Learning linked up this pretty quilt.  Check out all of that quilting!

And finally, this striking finish is by Quilting Gail-

Okay friends!  It's time to link up the awesomeness that's been happening in your studio this week!

Remember!  In July, Blogger will stop the Feedburner service, which means that if you're currently receiving my posts via email, that will stop at that time.  BOO!  I'm really disappointed that they're doing this, but we just have to roll with it.  Instead, please continue to follow me through another platform.  I recommend Bloglovin', facebook, or Instagram, and then bookmark my blog so it is easy to get to.  Thanks for your continued support, friends!

Okay, let's get this party started, y'all!

1. You can link finished projects or WIP's , but just keep it about quilting and sewing!

2. Link to your specific post (not to your home page!) to make it easier for others.

3. Please remember to spread the word and post my button or a text link within your 

    post.  

4. Spread the comment love far and wide!

5. Following me is not a requirement to link, but is so very appreciated!

*If you're new to the party, here's a helpful tip for linking up- select "Auto Crop"  when selecting your thumbnail photo.  For some reason, trying to crop your own image results in the dreaded "white question mark box," and we definitely want to see your awesome work!  :)