It's a Home!

Being that this is a small kind of quilt, I wasted little time in quilting it up!  I've enjoyed constructing each tiny house I've made and when I decided to make a larger version I knew part of the fun was going to be in the quilting.

HOME
16" x 16"

Not every section was touched with thread!  Some was left to stand on its own and I didn't feel the need to get completely crazy with the quilting!



I used straight lines for the siding and border.  The roof is a grid made up of rectangles to resemble shingles.



The sky is a swirly something or another!  I honestly don't know what you can the design, but it works!  Stippling was placed around the border of hearts and a straight line/pebble design completes the inside border. 



The backing fabric was the perfect find in my stash to complete the 'picture'!  I almost feel like I should have used some of this fabric for the inside of the windows...it got me thinking!



Total whimsy with this one!  I enjoy playing around with fabric options and of course, paper piecing always makes me happy!

LINKING:

OH SCRAP! ● MAIN CRUSH MONDAY ●  MONDAY MAKING 
MIDWEEK MAKERS ● NEEDLE & THREAD 

PEACOCK PARTY  ● TGIFF ● WHOOP WHOOP FRIDAY

BRAG ABOUT YOUR BEAUTIES ● FINISHED OR NOT FRIDAY  

Welcome!

I've done very little sewing once again!  I'm itching to get into a large project but the opportunity has yet to present itself!  Instead I decided to built another home...a larger home!  After this one I promise I will not share another one for a long time!

HOME
16" X 16"

I hadn't actually made an 8" block from this pattern, so I decided it was time.  (Heart of the Home Pattern)  After I choose my fabrics and paper pieced the block together I decided to keep going by adding the white and peach borders around the center.

Far be it for me to stop there!!  I considered my options and eventually came up with a few ideas!



Rummaging through my scraps, I came up with enough prints and solids to make 13 hearts.  The hearts are 2 1/4" unfinished and 1 3/4" finished.  They went together very quick! 

I wanted to add the word 'HOME' on the bottom and ended up using a pattern by Quiet Play.  It's Kristy's Geometric Alphabet pattern, except I opted to modify it by using just solids and reducing the letters to fit my vision.

When I made the 8" block I used this bird fabric for the chimney.  Thankfully when I was considering what to add on either side of 'HOME', I discovered I had two birds left that ended up being perfect for the square-in-a-square blocks.



I love when a 'not well' made plan feels like it was a well made plan in the end!



The banner 'Greet the day with a song' came from fabric I've had for ions!  There were several amazing quotes throughout the yardage.  This was the only one I had left that was intact.



It's no secret that one of the perks of making these houses is you get to add special details in the windows.  Because the center block was 8" instead of my usual 4" block,  I could finally use fabric with larger prints!

I mean...the bunny tail...



And who doesn't love a puppy dog who is a chef?!  

In the end quilting is about having fun and I certainly had fun with this quilt!  I should get to quilting it in a day or two!

Unless of course I decide to do more pressure washing!  I love pressure washing and feel it's a perk of being a homeowner!  I'm weird that way!

Our deck was looking pretty disgusting as you can see from this photo.  The deck is huge and I knew it would bring on some aches and pains after it was all said and done.  Even so, I was excited!

 

It's so satisfying to see the end results!  Now if I had deck furniture!  In another couple days when I'm no longer sore I'll pressure wash the driveway!  

LINKING:

OH SCRAP! ● MAIN CRUSH MONDAY ●  MONDAY MAKING 
MIDWEEK MAKERS ● NEEDLE & THREAD 

PEACOCK PARTY  ● TGIFF ● WHOOP WHOOP FRIDAY

BRAG ABOUT YOUR BEAUTIES ● FINISHED OR NOT FRIDAY  

Oh What a Week!

This past week has been one long and stressful week!  One for the record books!  Last Sunday evening we had a serious storm come through that moved fast and furious.  The wind was some of the strongest I've seen.  The results were power outage for 16 hours but no real damage for us.  We walked and drove the neighborhood the next day and saw the true extent.  Trees across streets, in power lines and hitting many houses.  We felt very lucky!

Just when we thought things were calm and peaceful, another storm rolled through Monday evening.  We had no idea of its strength at the time, and were feeling lucky...until the very end...when we lost power...again!

The next morning we saw that a tree top had snapped off and there were numerous limbs strewn across the lawn.  Come to find out the two storms were the strongest straight line winds Tennessee had seen in a decade.  Quick and powerful storms are no joke!

We ended up not having power for 70 hours...that's just shy of three days!  Because we are an older neighborhood and the power grid is a mess, we could look out our windows and see neighbors with lights blazing.  Seriously!  Three houses down the street!

Thankfully that neighbor three houses down let us bring our freezer full of food to their house with electricity!  Thankful would be an understatement!  We also had a couple borrowed coolers full of food that we iced down in hopes of saving as well.  

While it was only three days, it felt like three weeks!  The stress of not knowing when the power would come on, whether or not the storm zapped appliances and did the food survive was getting to be too much!  

All that being said, I wasn't able to sew!  Luckily I had a couple quilts that were in need of bindings.  That simple task took my stress level down a notch or two.  

Because I don't have new and exciting project that I can share, I'm sharing my go to quilt design again!



Yellow sashing and a dark gray border, capped off with a light gray binding.    



I quilted both quilts using a gray variegated Aurifil thread, which works well with all the colors.





Turquoise sashing, light gray border and a dark gray binding.



I once again quilted 1/2" and 3/4" lines which at certain points created a grid of tiny rectangles.



When our power finally came back on it was met with a sigh of relief, a scream or two and a happy dance!  It was a miracle in my book!

I'm hoping to have something new to share for a change!

LINKING:

OH SCRAP! ● MAIN CRUSH MONDAY ●  MONDAY MAKING 
MIDWEEK MAKERS ● NEEDLE & THREAD 

PEACOCK PARTY  ● TGIFF ● WHOOP WHOOP FRIDAY

BRAG ABOUT YOUR BEAUTIES ● FINISHED OR NOT FRIDAY  

Very Little Sewing Happening!

It's true!  I've done very little sewing these days!  Very little could mean several things...not sewing much or sewing little minis!

In my case I'm sewing minis.  It's satisfying, fun and when you don't have a large project to work on but just wanna make...it fills that urge for the time being.

HEART OF THE HOME PATTERN 

Welcome to my neighborhood!  These tiny houses go together pretty quick and even though they are paper pieced, they are pretty easy and don't require too much precision.

Big heart or small heart, each one gets a little special treatment with some sort of detail.  

4 1/4" x 4 1/4"

This was the last one in the batch that I made.  It was the first time I realized I could add a selvedge with a cute saying to personalize the house!  DUH!  It really only works with the small heart house (Small Heart Pattern) and appears as if it was meant to be.  I don't often save selvedges unless like this one, it's too cute to toss!

 

The Gnome house might be a favorite of mine!  Fussy cutting for the windows is one option, but I couldn't forget about the chimney! Meow!

Bears and bunnies anyone?!  Truthfully, it takes longer to pick the fabric than it does to sew one of these minis, at least thats true for me!

You gotta find the right 'window dressing' that will fit inside the frame.  The patterns come in three sizes: 4", 6" and 8".  With a little juggling of fabric you can find the right size print to fussy cut for any size.



For the most part I've been free motion quilting each mini house.  Which is why the quilting isn't perfect!  I like to quilt the sky, roof, heart and house so that each has a different design.  It might be a bit more time consuming, but FMQ speeds that up to some degree.

With the weather warming up the flower seeds I planted indoors needs to be transplanted.  That's where I'll be if anyone comes knocking at my tiny house door!

'Heat of the Home' patterns are available here:

  Twiggy & Opal Etsy

LINKING:

OH SCRAP! ● MAIN CRUSH MONDAY ●  MONDAY MAKING 
MIDWEEK MAKERS ● NEEDLE & THREAD 

PEACOCK PARTY  ● TGIFF ● WHOOP WHOOP FRIDAY

BRAG ABOUT YOUR BEAUTIES ● FINISHED OR NOT FRIDAY