Blog Post 4 – Large House
G’day, everybody! Harley again (@thatcraftydafty) with my monthly update on the Patchwork and Quilting variant of the My Guilty Pleasure Subscription Service.
The Patchwork and Quilting option for the My Guilty Pleasure Subscription Service is designed to have you make a block each month, and by the end of the twelfth month you will have enough blocks to make a sampler quilt.
The fourth Block of the Month is the Large House.
As always, inside this month’s box I received the following:
x 4 Fat Eighths of a new Lewis & Irene collection
x 1 Fat Quarter of a background
Fully printed instructions for the Block of the Month, complete with helpful illustrations
x 1 spool of thread, in a coordinating colour
x 1 surprise! (A Lotus biscuit! I love those!)
Now, I’ve only ever made one house block before, and it was part of a Christmas themed quilt. In theory there’s nothing really difficult about them, plus they are quite customisable. Which means you can make them suit almost any project and theme you like if you’re feeling more creative. All that said, I was quite excited to give this style block another go and although there are three variations in the printed instructions provided, I decided to go big and make the largest house.
Once again, we are using our old friend, the Stitch & Flip method. I will say that I am sadly quite rusty with the S&F method, even though I was using it a lot in last month’s block. Having said that, I only had to do two pieces with this method, while the rest of the block is made up of straight sewing and it comes together very easily. There are a few points that you should try to match, but it doesn’t affect the look of the block if you don’t. With an accurate ¼” seam allowance your points will match naturally.
This block also is a good example of fabric placement and pattern direction. As you can see from my example, I made sure that the fabric for the main body of the house – cream with the gnomes on it – was all situated the same way. Of course, if you favour a scrappier look to your quilt blocks, then this step might not be too important to you. However, if you’re like me and like things to look a little more uniform, then I’d advise you pay attention to how you’re actually cutting fabric. That way you can make sure that everything is situated correctly, and everything is “facing the right way”.
For this month’s block I also pressed all my seams open. Shocking, I know, I told you before I usually press to the side. However, I wanted to see if this would help make the whole block lie a little flatter where seams intersect and overlap. It was very much worth it as there is a little bulk in this block where the chimneys meet the corners of the roof, and pressing these seams open helped ensure that the bulk in these corners was reduced. I’d definitely recommend pressing seams open if you feel like you’re going to have trouble matching points and keeping intersections flat.
As always, I hope you’ve found this blog entry useful. I’ll be providing updates every month via the Little Miss Sew ‘n’ Sew blogs on their website, but you can check out little sewing updates via my Instagram account: @thatcraftydafty. Hope to see you there.
Thanks for sticking around!
H.