Housing Developments

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  I got a little carried away making house blocks this week.  It's almost a village.  In this photo, it kind of looks like they're built on a hill.  Or having an earthquake.

This one is Bambi's house.  There's a dear little deer in the pink print.

Here's a flower house, with Bo Peep and her sheep in the windows.

I call this one the toy house, because the items in the pink print look like toys (or maybe cartoons?).  There are birds on the roof and cats on the door.

The cats just cannot be denied!  This house is made of a dog print, but there are cats in the windows and the background.

This house quilt is one of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilts, and the color of the month for June is pink.  Usually, I made 3 of these houses per month.  But, I didn't made dark green houses last month, because I ran out of decent greens, so I need to make some extras to stay on track with the math.  And you know how careful I have always (never) been about math.  I had enough scraps to make 4 pink blocks, plus...

A blue bear block, and ...

a blue floral house, with a pink bunny roof.  I used pink in each of these blocks, just for fun.

So, after 6 months of the RSC, this project has 18 blocks.  Which is exactly what it was supposed to have.  I think.

The houses are new construction.

 This is a remodeling project.

Years ago, I bought this unfinished quilt at a flea market.  It was in two main pieces, with two unconnected rows.  I loved the colors, and the way the quilt maker arranged them in a kind of rainbow.  I naively thought I could just sew the pieces together and finish the top.

Sometimes, there is a very good reason a quilt was never finished.  I believe this quilt maker ran out of the aqua color in the sashings, right when she needed three long strips of it in the middle.  I feel her pain.  The top was so close to being ready to quilt.  It would have needed setting triangles around the edge, but they could have been a different color.

After lots of thinking, and looking at quilts online, and drinking a couple of gallons of iced tea, this is what I decided to do with it.  I had no hope of matching the sashing with new fabric. So  I'm rippling out the sashing, and setting the little blocks into double nine patches.

That fabric on top is a real hoot.  It looks like kids' drawings from kindergarten.

Check out the back of the blocks.  The machine-sewn seams are pressed open.  The blocks measure 4.5 in. unfinished.  As you can see, I'm working with the pink blocks this month in honor of the RSC.

The prints in these blocks date from the 1930s through the 1950s.  One of the things that drew me to this project was the variety of fun prints, like the one above.  I'm afraid that little sunbonnet girl is trying to herd those cats.  (I have had similar experiences.  I don't recommend it.)

More cats!  These three blocks are all cut from the same fabric, which might be a Puss in Boots print.  Poor kitty is terribly cut up. 

Like lots of remodeling projects, this is going to take a while, and make a big mess.  This is the "little half" of the top.  The other half is just like this, plus rows of yellow, purple, red and blue.  As I free the blocks from the sashing, I'll be making them into Double Nine Patch blocks, so I can alternate ripping and sewing.  It will be a lot of work, but I like a challenge.

We definitely live in challenging times!  I'm wishing strength and hope for all of us, as we forge ahead this year.  As always, I take comfort in music.

To quote Paul McCartney:

        And when the broken-hearted people living in the world agree,

        There will be an answer, Let it be.

        For though they may be parted, there is still a chance that they will see,

        There will be an answer.  Let it be.

(My littlest grand-buddies hanging out together.)

Stay well!

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap