Tutorial for Tuesday - 4 Houses Cushion

Do you have some layer cakes squares left over or some fat eight's or even scraps that you want to use up? This 24"pillow/cushion project might just be of interest. I had great fun making this so thought I'd write it up as my first project based tutorial.

I used 12 layer cake squares and some background fabric to make this and have enough left over for another set of roofs to make a matching pair of cushions. If you go with matching roofs it's possible to do this with even less fabric squares.



I have downloadable piecing instructions here including how to make the half rectangle triangles for the roof. Otherwise step by step instructions are below with lots of photos!

I stacked the four layer cake squares together that I wanted for the houses and cut 3 rows 2.5" wide and the remaining 1.5" wide.

1. The first row is for the windows and doors. Sub cut two 2.5" squares and one 2.5" x 3.5 rectangle.
2. Sub-cut row 2 into one 2.5" square and four 2.5" x 1.5" rectangles for the window sashing.
3. Cut row 3 into two rectangles 2.5" x 4.5" long
4. Lastly take row 4 and cut 2 rectangles 1.5" x 4.5" long

Lay out as follows and mix and match windows and doors for a nice contrast

I chain pieced the sashing on either side of the windows first, then the top and bottom. There will be 2 of these House units per house.

 Sew the mantel to the door and sew a House unit on either side of the door unit.

For the roofs you will need 2 rectangles 5.5" x 6.5" in background fabric and 2 in patterned fabric matching or in the same colour way .

Place BGF and one of the patterned squares right sides together. Mark a quarter inch from top and bottom and draw a diagonal line from mark to mark.

Repeat for the second matching rectangles but the slope going in the opposite direction. This is important to get a left hand half rectangle triangle and a right hand one to make the roof.

Cut along this line through both rectangles. You only need one of each for each house.

Take a BGF triangle and a patterned triangle and lay them right sides together like this. Yes it looks wonky but this is correct!

Put the remaining aside for a second house or cushion if you don’t want matching roofs. Sew with a 1/4" seam along the long edge.

I chain pieced them to speed up the process.

Do the same for the opposite sloping triangles. You should have 4 of each kind. Press the seams and open.

Match up right to left hand triangles to make the roof.

These rectangles are oversized and will need to be trimmed down. I squared up the short edge where I am sewing them together and trimmed the whole roof down afterwards. It is easier to do this to keep the point at the roof top.

Trim to 10.5" x 4.5" keeping 1/4" at the top. Don't worry if this doesn't work out. I clipped points and the roof still looks great when its all put together.

Attach the roof to the House body. Don't do what I did and attach the roof to the bottom of the house! Dope that I am I did this and didn't notice until I had the whole thing quilted. It's my cushion and I can live with a wonky version! 

Attach 2 houses together to form a row - yes this is the house I sewed the roof to the wrong side! So now you know not to do it like me!

Cut 4 strips from the background fabric 9.5" x 2.5" and sew to either side of the 2 row of houses.
Cut 3 strips 25" x 2.5" for sashing between rows and top and bottom of the rows.

And you should have a finished cushion top measuring 24.5" square.

I layered with wadding/batting & utility fabric and quilted using this stencil pattern:

I made a simple envelope cushion with 2 pieces of fabric measuring 24.5" x 18" (instructions in the piecing pattern). You can trim to 24" if you want a plumper fit.  And here's my wonky version! Hope you like this project!