House Block Tutorial

I am taking part in an 'Around the World' swap of sorts. It's actually more like a 'Round Robin' swap, but with blocks instead of a center medallion and borders.

You might have heard me mention this swap, it's being hosted by SummerSadie.

I've created a cottage block, actually I wanted a block a little bigger than the wonderful cottage that Nanette made on her tutorial at Freda's Hive. So it's really more of a House block, than a cottage.

Now, everyone will be creating their own blocks for me, so they won't all be cottages, or houses or anything like that. It will be a mishmash of squares from.... around the world!

Anyhow, here is how I made my 12.5 inch (12 inch finished) house block:

• First I selected fabrics for the Sky, house, windows, ground, door, roof, chimney and cut them into the following pieces
  
• Sky: (a) 10.5 inches by 1.5 inches, cut 2; (b) 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches, cut 1; (c) 2.5 inches by 6.5 inches, cut 1; (d) 2.5 inches by 1.5 inches, cut 1
  
• House: (e) 4.5 inches by 1.5 inches, cut 2; (f) 2.5 inches by 1.5 inches, cut 4; (g) 4.5 inches by 2.5 inches, cut 2; (h) 2.5 inches by 2.5 inches, cut 1
• Windows: (i) 2.5 inches by 2.5 inches, cut 2
• Ground:(j) 12.5 inches by 2.5 inches, cut 1
• Door: (k) 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches, cut 1
• Roof: (l) 3.5 inches by 10.5 inches, cut 1
• Chimney: (m) 1.5 inches by 1.5 inches, cut 1

• Begin by sewing the house together. Sew 2 window blocks (i) to 4 house blocks (f)
  
  
• Next sew House blocks (e) and (h) to the top and bottom of the window bricks.

• Next sew the last house block (g) to the door block (k)
• Then sew the door brick to the window bricks. Now you have the main house brick assembled. You just need to attach the roof, sky and ground.
  
• Sew the roof (l) block to the newly assembled house brick
• Now to assemble the sky units. Sew the chimney mini-block (m) to the sky mini-block (d)
  
• Then sew blocks (b) and (c) to either side of the chimney brick
• Next sew the sky brick to the house brick.
  
  
• Now sew the last two sky pieces (a) to the house brick.
• Lastly sew on the ground piece (j)
  

This is a fun block, you could get particularly fun with the window fabrics.

Cheers,

Dionne