Building Houses is a Messy Business!

 Hello friends.  Thank you so much for stopping by to have a look at the construction sight.  You know that house building is a messy business.  One is left with several scraps that you can't use because there is not enough for a house unit!

 What to do with your scraps you may ask.  Remember, your scraps cost the same as your precious yardage, so put them to good use.

 I am making 1/2 inch hexagons with my leftovers.  I cleared all the scraps from around my sewing machine this weekend and made this lovely little pile.  They are going into a box with others to make a completely scrappy hexagon quilt.  No planning involved!  Just lots of color and lots of sewing.

 Are they not too cute for words?

Here is my tin which I put my finished houses into.  It is getting full.  I have 49 houses.  Yes, I can't believe it but I am only behind by one house.  I made SEVEN this weekend.  The dear husband and kids were building a model aircraft at the kitchen table.  My daughter was sewing there too.  My machine was set up and I just stitched away merrily.  We had quiet a crafty weekend.  It was so good just being together.

Houses and Hearts

Hello!  What a fine Monday this has been.  It is cold, rainy and grey here in Texas but I had an awesome day stitching with my friend.  She is also building houses.  We made two this morning and then went to visit a quilt store.  I have come home, turned on the fire, and plan to do more stitching.  I need to catch up on construction!!!

I found these adorable heart blocks on Pinterest.  Ula Lenz is the lady to whom the patterns belong.  Thank you so much for sharing Ula!!!  They are foundation paper pieced and are so much fun to do.
Thanks for stopping by to see what I am up to.  Hope you are having fun too.

It's A Small Village!!!

Building Houses from Scraps is so much fun!!  Friends of mine have joined the village construction!  I have been fairly disciplined about making my houses.  I had to catch up in the beginning while I was deciding what method to use in the construction of the houses.  I settled on foundation paper piecing and then had to teach myself how to do it.  Well, I love the process.  I managed to be ahead for a week, and now I find myself behind by two days.  Oh well, no problem!!  I plan on sewing some houses today.
Hope you are having a great day and thanks for stopping by!!

Lil Twister Table Runner

 I taught a class at the store where I work on Monday.  It is a table runner using the Lil Twister tool.  It is so much fun to use.  I have taken pictures of the process.  I used a charm pack in Urban Cowgirl.  Extremely pretty fabric.  Firstly you lay out your blocks and stitch them together.

 When you are done you have to attach the first border which has to be the same color as the background blocks.  Just when you are finished and feeling quite pleased with your efforts you have to cut it up, and start all over again.

 The top picture shows the table runner with the first row of blocks cut out.  The picture below shows the placement of the Lil Twister tool.

 It is important to keep the order just right whilst doing this otherwise your pinwheels might end up wrong.

 Sew it all back together and you will end up with the above photo.  Next you put on your second border and then you are done with the top.  Then you are ready to quilt it as you wish.

 Here is a close-up of the twister detail.  Cute hey?  I am so glad with the way it turned out.

Too Much Fun!!!

 The community is growing!!  So far I have made ten houses.  I love that this project has taught me how to do Foundation Paper Piecing.  I tried it many years ago (albeit half-heartedly) and things did not go well!!!  I was determined to get it right this time.  My first house came together flawlessly!!  Have you heard of "Beginners Luck"? Well that is what I had.  My second house was not good - had a hole in the roof!!!  I discovered I was cutting my pieces a little bit too small and I had a gap.  Fixed that problem and trucked ahead!  I have had to unpick a seam or two along the way because I placed the fabric wrong side up!!!

 Yesterday I sat down and made six houses.  Got all those kinks ironed out and now I have the process down.

I hated all the jumping up and down from the sewing machine to the iron.  So now I piece a whole bunch of the building blocks and then go and iron them and trim them.  I am proud to say I am only behind by six blocks now.  I love to fussy cut an element to go in the window of some of the houses.  It really makes it fun.  I think my family thinks I am totally nuts.  I go running to them and say "Look what is in the window!!!"  This is really a fun project and I am enjoying it thoroughly.  Hopefully those of you who are also building houses are enjoying it too.
Take care and have a wonderful day.

Making Houses from Scraps

 I was quite daunted by the thought of hand piecing all of the little houses.  Then Jantine kindly made a foundation paper piecing pattern.  I have never done foundation paper piecing (I am the crazy English Paper Piecing lady).  So I thought I would give it a bash anyway!

Well it turned out much easier than I thought it would be - even on such a small scale.  I think the house is really cute and now I am only behind by 9 and not 10 anymore!!!  Here's hoping I will catch up pretty quickly!!! This is a great project to use up really tiny scraps!!!

The Quiltmania Hexagon Quilt

Quiltmania Number 86 (Nov/Dec 2011) has this gorgeous pattern in it.  I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw it!!!  Can you say GORGEOUS???  Well, there was only one thing left to do and that was to get started.  The quilt is made from 1/2 inch hexagons and contains about a trillion of them.

 Am I daunted by this project?  Nay nay!!!  I whipped out fabric, traced hexagons on freezer paper and got started!!!  Guess what!!! (This truly makes me certifiable)  I am FUSSY CUTTING the little pieces!!!

I am eating this elephant one bite at a time and I don't care how long it takes!!!  I bought the most gorgeous red fabric (Moda Solid - Christmas Red) for the connector hexagons.

I have fifteen little flowers done and am working on the large central medallion.  I have to say that so far it is not even enough for one row of the quilt.  However, I am having so much fun.  I will keep you all updated!! Thank you for stopping by!!  My blog has been up and running for a year now.  I have had so much fun blogging.  A huge THANK YOU to all who have stopped by to peek into my little sewing world.  You mean so much to me and it is so fun to see where all the visitors come from.