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!

Quilt Math

I have a Tutorial's page!  I'm still working on my 4 houses cushion that I will post as my first pattern tutorial but in the mean time I've been taking the Writers Bureau course and before I get to the fiction section there is quite a bit of non-fiction.  The first two assignments are 1500 and 2000 word articles for a particular magazine or market so I chose the quilting world (of course!) and chose Quilter's mathematics as my subject.  I've posted both assignments on my Tutorial page if anyone is interested.

Part 1 covers popular quilt sizes from mug rugs to King size, Half Square Triangles and the 7/8" rule, Quarter Square Triangles and setting square blocks on point.

Part 2 covers deconstructing a block in order to change the block size.  I cover double 9 patch, simplified LeMoyne Star, Ohio Star and applique blocks.

There will be a part 3 but its a WIP at the moment.  Any feedback much appreciated.  Hope they are of use!

Things I've learned

I've added a new page to my blog Things I've Learned where I've started collecting my favourite tutorials and patterns from the wonderful craft community.  This is a reference for me on where to find great tutorials, favourite blogs and patterns and I hope will be of use to you too.  Happy Friday!

What works for me!

I have a favourite ruler.  It happens to be the first one that I bought.  I made my first quilt from charms squares and didn't cut anything.  It was perfect.  I learned how to sew a straight line and nest my seams.  My seam ripper came with my machine and I "borrowed" (as in no intention of giving it back!) a pin cushion from my mum.

For my second quilt I bought a Schnibbles pattern Little Houses and around the same time signed up for Deborah Moebe's quilting e-course which involved making blocks and cutting from fat quarters.  So I bought a beginners set from the Sewing Shed in Kerry that included an 11 x 17" cutting mat,  a 45mm rotary cutter and a 4" x 14" ruler.  Luckily for me they were out of stock of the 11x17 and I changed to a 12x18 mat - I won't say no to an extra inch of cutting board!

Possibly this ruler is my favourite because I'm so used to it but I think the reason I reach for it so often is because, really, it doesn't slip.  This thing sticks in place with a little pressure.  It's perfect for cutting binding strips and sashing, has well marked lines on the 0.5" and the 45 degree line for diamonds is really easy to use.  It has also been really handy for the paper piecing blocks I've been working on lately.

For the craftsy block of the month I bought a 12.5" square Omnigrid ruler andI did eventually add more inches in a 6.5"x24" quilters ruler and a 16"x24" mat which seems ginormous in comparison to what I started with.  The new 6.5"x24" ruler is a good size for cutting from yardage but it has a life of its own sometimes. 

I bought a roll of Invisigrip by Omnigrip from Quilters Haven which is a plastic sheet that sticks to the back of the ruler and grips the fabric through static cling.  It did help and I do walk my hand up the ruler only cutting a short distance at a time but I'm wondering about adding a hand grip and must look into those.

The invisgrip roll has lots of mileage on it and I added it to an EZ Dresden ruler and a 60 degree triangle ruler I have yet to use.  Great purchase that!  You never know maybe there's a triangle quilt in my future it could be good for.

Finally a small plastic tupperware style container is my latest addition as a thread catcher.  It was left over from a lunchbox set  I bought last summer.  It works great for catching snipped off threads and I just tip it over the bin and voila empty - nothing sticks to it.  Though it hasn't quite cured me of the habit I have of wiping the little thread remnants after cutting fabric onto the laminate wooden floor below and sweeping up later much to my mum's dismay!  Well that's what works for me.  What works for you?

Paper Piecing

For some reason I find paper piecing really hard - It's headwrecking.  I constantly seem to have pieces too small even though I check flipping them back and forward, over and back and it is so wasteful of material.  But I figured out why I find it so difficult.  I'm using ordinary printing paper that is thick and hard to see through.  So when I place my piece of fabric on the back I'm not stitching where I thought I'd be and then when I fold the fabric back to cover my shape its too small.  So in lieu of having any purpose made foundation paper I'm cutting bigger fabric pieces!  If anyone has a favourite way of doing this or a favourite paper they use please let me know - I am open to all suggestions. 

Anyhoo practice makes perfect so here's a few photos of how I got on this weekend making Doctor Who blocks for the Doctor Who A Long over at Trillium Design and Whims andFancies.  Over 200 of us have signed up so far.  Here's a link to the Flickr page if you want to follow along.   The first block was the Tardis.

Isn't it cool?  Hard to see how you would make this any other way and I love the result.  Sorry I have no in progress shots of this one I was concentrating so hard I forgot to take photos. 

The other thing about paper piecing for me is it takes so long.  I started on Friday evening just after dinner and didn't finish until well into Saturday.  I had hoped to get both blocks done but not a chance! I was more diligent on the second block and took some photos.  I hope to finish it this week as block 2 is due out next Tuesday. 

I use a pin to keep the first piece of material to the paper - note to self:  must by fabric glue. 

Once sewn trim excess - even doing this I got a lot of bulk in some areas with such tiny pieces sewn so close together to give a curved shape.

Looks kinda funky from the right side until all excess trimmed away at 1/4" seam.

 And voila - unit G completed.

 Had to fudge the ends a bit to cover up shortfall in fabric!  Oh well.   It looks ok next to the remaining pieces.

Now to sew them all together.   Just as well I love Doctor Who.   I keep telling myself it'll all be worth it in the end!

Linking up to

See comments below for tips from the generous quilting community in response to above:

A Dog's Life: Block 1 & 2

Wow, that was a quick weekend.  I can't believe Monday has rolled around again already.  I spent a good couple of hours on Saturday breaking the back of the stack of 252 squares and flying geese that needed to be sewn together into rows for my Bounce quilt.  More on that later! 

So Sunday dawned and I really had had enough of Bounce and decided to work on something for myself.  As you can tell from my blog title we're a doggy household and I just love quilt projects with anything to do with dogs.  I have had this project on the back burner for a while: "A Dog’s Life" by Lynnette Anderson.  

It makes a lap/baby quilt and comes in 4 parts.  It was originally a Block of the Month program and when I saw it while browsing Lynnette's website I knew I had to have it.  I searched all the quilt supply shops for this locally (Lynette is based in Australia) and I found it in Switzerland from Cotton and Colour (not that Switzerland is local but it is closer!) Lynette uses lovely muted colours with a lot of grey in them.  I like my colours just a bit warmer and so chose Nancy Halverson's Forever Spring collection.  My local quilt shop didn't have any of the red in stock so I searched the online shops again and luckily I stumbled on a shop in the UK called Quilter's Trading Post.  They had nearly all of the range and I bought a Fat Eight of each pattern they had.  I started in on block 1 and completed it before Christmas (see above).  Then I got distracted with other projects and since then it has sat in my plastic tub of stash.  Well it's been on my mind and procrastinating about finishing Bounce and the desire to do a "me" project allowed me to spend half of Sunday pulling fabric and patterns and just having fun.

The pattern comes with two sheets showing the layout and the embroidery stitching for details like the eyes and flowers.  There is also a sheet showing the appliqué shapes to be cut for the dogs and cats.  I chose to use washable fusible glue sheets to hold my fabric to the background before stitching all around the shapes with a blanket stitch.  Needle turn method would be lovely but as this is my first appliqué project I'm going with the simplest and quickest method for me.

The fusible glue sheets come with a paper backing on one side and a rough un-papered side on the other.  To begin with I ironed the rough side to the back of the fabric prints I wanted for my shapes.  For the appliqué method I was using you have to reverse the appliqué shapes to trace on the back of the bonded material so first I traced the shapes to paper then I reversed the paper templates and laid them on the back of the material with the backing paper facing out.  I traced around the templates and cut out the fabric pieces.

Next I traced the layout pattern provided with parchment paper to give a semi-transparent image I could use to help layout the shapes correctly.  I removed the backing paper from my fabric shapes and arranged them on the background fabric as per the design paying particular care to what should lie on top.

 I then ironed it all down piece by piece and I think it looks great already.  Now I can embroider around the shapes with a blanket stitch to keep them in place as in block 1 and add in the details while I'm watching TV or have a few moments to spare during the week.  So glad I took a break from Bounce to catch up on this!