My "Quilt Me A House" Quilt Tutorial

Hello my lovelies! Here I am returning to my rusty old forgotten blog because I've gotten so much love and so many sweet comments on Instagram over my new little baby quilt that I designed. So I'm going to share pictures and a tutorial on how I put the houses together. If there's one thing that I REALLY love, it's quilty houses. I've been inspired by so many adorable patterns out there. I wanted to make a somewhat simple looking house quilt for my new little great niece, and I knew I wanted to use the Lil' Red fabric line by Stacy Hsu. I was originally going to just do charm squares for the houses, with roofs made from half a charm square. But then I thought, how stinkin' cute would that be if there were little doors that opened with Little Red Riding Hood inside?!? Eeeeeeeek! ;-) How fun would it be for a baby to have tummy time on a lift-the-flap style quilt?

There is a bit of trickiness involved in this quilt. And because it was all experimental for me, I ran into some frustrations along the way. BUT, the finished quilt is so fun and so adorable, it was all worth it. I'm going to make a twin size (with bigger houses) for my daughter. She's IN LOVE with her little cousin's quilt! Anyway, hopefully my pictures and tips along the way will make it easy and less frustrating for YOU! It's probably best to read this whole (VERY LONG) thing before starting.And please be patient with me. This is really my first quilty creation and I am in no way, shape, or form a professional pattern writer! :-) But feel free to comment with any questions and I'll try to help!

So my quilt ended up about 44"x 55". I made a total of 56 houses, 19 of them had doors, the other 37 were made from a 5" square and a roof. I used a charm pack plus part of a FQ bundle, but you could just use fat quarters if you wanted to.

**You'll also need:
*3/4 yard background fabric, I used white.

*Pellon Craft Fuse (Style #808) This will be inside the doors as a stabilizer.

Cut out 5" squares (charm squares) for each plain house from desired fabric.
Cut 56 - 5"x 2.75" rectangles for the roof pieces.
Cut 112 - 2.75" white squares for the corners above the roofs. Draw a diagonal line on each white square.

For each plain house, without the doors, you'll need a 5" square, and for the roof, one 5"x 2.75" rectangle, and two 2.75" white squares.

You'll piece the roof together, like flying geese, then attach it to the house. Quick and easy!

Now for the door houses! You may want to do what I did, I made one house to make sure I got it all right, before I went and cut out all the house pieces. ALSO, I just wanted to point out that this print from the "Lil Red line worked out PERFECTLY for the doors!

I used the little pictures as the "peek-a-boo" pictures inside some of the doors, and I used the little floral squares as the fronts and backs of the doors! I used 2 fat quarters and it worked out almost perfectly. I did cut 1 or 2 doors from other fabrics and I used another print for some of the "peek-a-boo" pictures.

Here are some of my fussy cut 3"x 2" "peek-a-boo" pictures for the insides of the doors:

So here are the measurements.

**You'll need the same size roof pieces as above.
**For the house:
*Fussy cut a 3"x 2" rectangle for the peek-a-boo picture inside the door.
*For the 2 side walls, cut two 3"x 2" rectangles.
*For the top piece above the door, cut a 2.5" x 5" rectangle from the same fabric as the 2 side walls.
*For the door, cut two 3"x 2" rectagles from a contrasting fabric, and one 2.5"x 1.75" rectangle from the Pellon Craft Fuse.

Let's make the door!

Lay your piece for the front of the door right side down on your ironing board. Follow the Pellon instructions to iron the rectangle of Craft Fuse with the SHINY SIDE DOWN against the WRONG side of the door. Make sure the edges are lined up on one side, and there should be 1/4 inch seem allowance on one side, and the top and bottom. Like this:

Next, place both door pieces right sides together, stitch around all 3 sides, 1/4" away from the edge, JUST on the outside of the Craft Fuse, trying not to stitch over it. You will want to back stitch when you start and stop. This will make it easier to turn without undoing your stitches. Clip your corners, being careful not to clip your stitches.

Carefully turn your door right side out, gently poking the corners out. Note: the Craft Fuse is not permanent and might come a little bit loose while you're turning. After you turn the door, press flat with a hot iron, then top stitch approximately 1/8" away from the edge,just on the 3 sides. The top stitch gives it a finished look AND keeps the Craft Fuse from shifting or wadding over time. Don't worry about the open side of the door, this is where it will be stitched onto the wall. :-)

The door may seem a little tricky at first,but once you make 2 or 3, they're super fun and easy!

Now let's piece the door and house together!

Lay your pieces out with your door on top of your peek-a-boo picture, lined up along the left edge, leaving 1/4"seem allowance around the other 3 sides. (Hopefully my pictures are less confusing than my words!) O_o

Then lay your left wall piece, right side down, on top of your door.

Pin the pieces in place so your door doesn't shift while sewing, and stitch all 3 pieces together. (You're stitching down the left side of the door. I turned it upside down before stitching.)

Now open your wall and press with the seem allowance going in the direction of your wall, this way the bulk of the door should not have to be folded at all. TA-DA! :-)

Next you're going to open your door up out of the way and stitch your right wall piece onto the right side of your peek-a-boo piece.

Press open and then stitch the top piece along the top.

Next add your roof piece and VOILA! You have a house with an opening door! There should still be 1/4" seem allowance below the door. This is where you'll sew your rows together.

Once I got a couple tester houses done, I cut out the rest of my house pieces, and laid them all out so that the peek-a-boo pictures, the doors, and the walls were all contrasting. Then I had a little chain-piecing party!

And I actually stitched all of my houses together and BEFORE attaching all of the roofs, I laid them out so I could decide which roof I wanted on which house and what order I wanted the houses in. THEN i attached all the roofs and sewed each row together.

You'll want to pin 2 rows together at each intersection between the houses.

NOW.... Sewing the rows together can be a little bit tricky because you're going to be sewing along the the bottom, right below the door,but you don't want to catch the door in your stitches. I'm holding the top layer out of the way so you can see what I mean.

So what I did was, when I got close to the door with my stitching, I stopped, with the needle down, reached in between the fabrics and gently pulled the door away from the needle, until I stitched below it. Like in this picture:

You'll sew across the top, like this, while gently holding the door up out of the way, from underneath. (I hope that's not confusing.)

When you press the rows open, you should end up with the bottom of each door right above the point of a roof.

YAY!!!


I bordered the whole neighborhood with a 1" (1.5" cut) border of aqua. I think this sort of put a break between the business of the houses and the outside border. Then I put another 3" printed border around that.

And lastly...

Here are some QUILTING TIPS that might come in handy!

I quilt most of my quilts myself with my sewing machine. I tried doing straight line quilting, which I have never done on anything bigger than a mini. As it turns out, I need A LOT more practice before attempting a big quilt. Besides, it is VERY time consuming. I have a lot of respect for people with THAT much patience, I got about 13 quilting lines in and realized it was looking very wonky and
it was going to take me until next Christmas! SOOOOO.... I picked it all out. GROSS. I know. :-(

So I decided to do a free motion circly-loopedy-loop pattern all over. BUT, in the houses that have doors, I did something different. I wanted to make sure I quilted over the seem allowance of each door for a little extra sturdiness. So I did a little scallopy type thing around the inside of the roof, the inside of the house and the OUTSIDE of each door. You will have to kind of wiggle the door around so you can see where you're quilting and NOT quilt over the edge of the door. I did NOT quilt in the inside of the door. I tried it on the first house, but holding the door open created an extra thickness, which caught my quilting foot, broke it, and I had to run out and buy a new one! SO there's my advice on that! :-) Here's a close up of my quilting, so you can see. I am, by no means, a pro at it, but I like to practice and try different things. And once it's washed and crinkled up, it's a lot more forgiving. ;-)

Well, that's it friends! If you've actually stuck with me until the end of this very long post, then you deserve a prize! HAHA!

Here's the finished front and back and then I'll say good night and go to bed! If you want to make this quilt,I would love to see your version on Instagram! Use the hashtag #quiltmeahousequilt and tag me @sewlizzy5 I'd love to see what you come up with!

Happy Quilting!

Oh! Also! P.S. After washing and drying the quilt, each door did come out just a little bit on the curly side. But I just pressed each one for only a second or two with a hot iron and they flattened right out with no problem! :-) The end!

May the 4th Be With You!

Good morning Friends! It's been a couple of weeks so I thought I would play catch up and show you all the fun things I've been working on! First up - since today is Star Wars day - Here is a hilariously adorable crochet project that I decided to make for my kids. A Death Star! A friend of mine showed me this pattern link on Pinterest and I knew my kids would love it. (House full of Star Wars nerds here.)

If you'd like to make one, I found the pattern HERE

It took me a couple of days, only because I was trying to be secretive and work on it after my kids went to bed. But it was fun and fairly easy!

I finished making the backyard cushions that I promised for my friend. They turned out pretty well, considering I've never done anything like that before! They were a bit of a hassle, and at one point my sewing machine just decided to FALL APART. It didn't like sewing through so many layers of canvas duck cloth. So I changed plans and made the tie-downs with 2 layers of matching gross grain ribbon sewn together, instead of making them out of the duck cloth. (Duh) ;) He was happy with them and best of all, they fit his furniture! WHEW!

Yesterday I finally finished this little cutie! My little Cinderella felt doll, made from a Gingermelon pattern. (I posted a link to her patterns in my last post!)

Now Piper has a Cinderella AND a Snow White, all a little girl could ask for, right?? ;)

A few days ago, Piper really wanted to paint peg dolls with me, so I finally made this little set I've been wanting to make. I found these little house-shaped tea tins on Etsy a couple of years ago and bought them just for this purpose. I've seen little sets like this that were stored in decorated Altoids tins, which were ADORABLE! But I saw these little house tins and couldn't resist!

And it all fits perfectly in the little house tin so a little girl can carry it in her purse to church or wherever you need some quiet entertainment for her!

Here's one of Piper's. She did a great job! She painted 4 other dolls, but can't find them now. (Story of our lives.) ;)

And last, but certainly not least: It was the Friday I've been waiting for!!! The first Farm Girl Friday! Lori Holt's latest book, "Farm Girl Vintage" is probably the most exciting thing in quilting for me! Eeeeeee!!! I absulutely love everything in it and when I first got it in the mail, I just couldn't stop looking through it. I just love all of the traditional looking blocks, plus all of the "Farm Girl" blocks that she has designed. Baby chicks, cherries, teapots, there is just so much drooling over this book! I want to make every single thing in it! So I got my stash ready and I'll be making 2 blocks a week along with her on her blog.

Ready, set, sew!

Here is my first block, and the first block in her book, "Apron Strings". I'm in love!

Lori is also posting directions for making all kinds of fun things out of the blocks. On Thursday it was this pin cushion. I've been desperately needing one, since Piper lost mine. I went and bought a bag of ground walnut shells quite a while ago just for stuffing pin cushions, and I FINALLY made one! YAY!

It's BIG and it holds tons of pins!! LOVE!

Well, that's all folks! This week will be spent on some yummies for Mother's Day! Shhhhh, it's a secret! :)

Thanks for stopping by my beautiful friends!

XOXO
~Elizabeth

A Week of Reality (and a little sewing)

...And then there are weeks when I have very little time for sewing. The reality of having 5 kids that all have something different going on hits hard and I barely have time to sit down, let alone do any frivolous crafting. ;)

I did manage to get the pattern pieces cut out for the most recent pattern that I bought from Gingermelon. Gingermelon is only one of my very favorite Etsy shops on the whole entire planet! Shelly is so talented and makes the cutest little patterns for felt dolls and animals that I've ever laid eyes on. Not only that, she is so friendly and lovely to work with. I have messaged her several times with questions about materials or colors she has used and she is always very quick to respond and very willing to help. I adore people like her! I recently bought her Cinderella pattern because Piper LOVES Cinderella. However, Piper has no interest in seeing the new movie. She watched the preview and realized it wasn't a cartoon, and Cinderella's hair wasn't yellow, and it wasn't up. So, NO, she didn't want to see it. She has her standards, you know. But I think this doll, once I finish it, will meet her approval. Her hair is a lovely shade of yellow, and it's UP!

I'm happy to say that the folder I keep my Gingermelon patterns in is busting at the seems. It's time to upgrade to a 3 ring binder. :)

You can shop at Gingermelon's Etsy shop HERE

My Owen had the Hope of America program that the 5th graders participate in every year, this was our 3rd time around. It's a really great program that always brings tears to my eyes. And it's so fun to watch your kids feel so proud to be a part of it. Seeing his little face, so happy that we had all come to watch, made the traffic, and the parking, and the crowds getting to the Marriot Center at BYU well worth it.

I only recorded one song, but it's the last song and the one that always makes me cry:



My Benjamin turned 15 this week! I kidnapped him from school and took him to lunch and on a little shopping spree for some desperately needed clothes, and the thing I hate spending money on but he just couldn't live another minute without, an XBOX Live Gold membership. I suppose his sweet and innocent looking smile is worth it. ;)

Instead of having a family dinner party, he chose a friend party instead. I'm not one to have friend parties for the little kids. Entertaining a whole crowd of little ones is NOT one of my talents. But when they're teenagers and I can throw pizza and cake at them and let them entertain themselves, I can handle that. Benjamin chose cheesecake for his birthday cake, which you wouldn't think would be that big of an ordeal. But leave it to me to make it one! 10 hours in the kitchen and 3 cheesecakes later... Yes, 3. Don't ask. One of these days I'll be more experienced with cheesecake and it won't be such a thing when my kids request one for their birthday. But this time we've got enough cheesecake leftover to feed a small army. :)

My Oliver had his Pinewood Derby race this week! Sadly, we forgot that it was on Friday, the same time we planned Ben's party. So Bruce got to go watch Oliver race his Rhino car, which he designed and painted all himself, and I got to supervise the teenage boy party.

And last but not least, my PK had State Finals for Winter Drumline. This was the first year that Westlake had their own indoor drumline team and they ended the season in 2nd place! They had an awesomely intense and dark show that was SO MUCH FUN TO WATCH! PK's been playing the first bass drum in Westlake's marching band for 4 years now. But this was the first year I've ever been to indoor drumline competitions and they were a ton of fun. This Saturday was the end of his career as a high school drummer and it makes me so proud and so sad at the same time. He's been closing a lot of chapters in his life with graduation coming up. But dang, that boy has done so much, he's worked his tail off and I couldn't be more proud of him. *sniff*

If you want to see their show:




And that was my crazy week. Somewhere in there I did manage to squeeze in some work on sewing projects that I've taken on for some friends. A dear, lifelong friend of mine is having his wedding reception in his backyard and asked me to make some new cushions for some backyard furniture he has. It's something I've never done before, but I told him I do it, so I'm figuring it out! Pictures when they're all done. :)

And when we got home Saturday night from state finals at Weber State, I swore I wouldn't get out of bed until Monday. And boy I made good on that promise. I finished hand stitching the binding on this beautiful quilt that my friend Barbara made for an auction for a local fundraiser that's coming up.

I had originally told her I would machine quilt it for her. But it turned out too big for me to quilt with my sewing machine. So my wonderful and thoughtful friend, Heather, quilted it with her long-arm quilting machine. So, feeling like I had done nothing to help, besides passing it from one hand to the next, I offered to bind it. I got the top side machine sewn and one side of the back hand sewn last week. Then yesterday I finished hand stitching the other 3 sides. It only took me a whole Star Wars Trilogy! Sewing and Star Wars. The perfect way to give my screaming knee a rest. Here is my beautiful and talented friend, Barbara and her finished quilt. This quilt will be up for auction at Wines Park in Lehi, Utah on Saturday, May 30th during the Walk with Angels fundraiser. All proceeds will go to the United Angels Foundation, which helps families with children that have special needs. You can get more info on the fundraiser HERE

This week, with much less on the calendar, I hope to finish with Aaron's backyard cushions, and maybe even hand-stitch a Cinderella doll for my only princess!!! :)

Thanks stopping by for a visit! I hope you all have a fabulous week!

XOXO
~Elizabeth