Little House Quilt - Getting Started #1

Welcome and let's get started on your Little House Quilt.   You will need to start with a photo of a house that you want on your quilt, it can be another building, a church perhaps or a building of historical significance, the process will be the same.  If you have a digital camera and can load your picture onto your computer you will use Method #1 to create your pattern.  If you have a photograph only, then you will use Method #2 to create your pattern.  These quilts don't need to be large, I like mine about the size of a fat quarter give or take.  

Method #1:  Digital Camera:  take your photo and input it into your computer, use a photo editor software, like Microsoft Photo Editor or any photo editor software you may have to convert your photo from color to black and white or  using the effects tab, change your picture to a chalk and charcoal or a line drawing.  Print this out to the dimensions that you want for your pattern.  Make 2 copies.

Method #2:  Regular Photo:  take your photo to the copy shop and print it out in black and white, enlarged to the size you wish.  If you need a really big pattern, you can take your black and white copy to a Blue Printer and they will copy it for a couple bucks to the size you need.  Make 2 copies.
HINT:  You can use a fine or medium tip black marker to outline the various components on your pattern.
The process looks like this:

Your Colored Photo to Black and White, use either Method #1 or #2
Next, enlarge your black and white to your desired finish size.

The enlargement above has been taped together to achieve the size that I want for this project.  I did this on my office copy machine by selecting 141% and running the pictures through twice to get it to the size I wanted.  Be sure to make 2 copies of your desired size!   This house has pretty bold lines that are easy to see, but if it didn't, you could take a fine or medium black felt tip marker and a ruler, trace over the main features to make them more prominent.  You can see in the photo below that I have filled in some of the house lines with a marker to see them more clearly.  Do this on both copies of your pattern.

Materials List:
2 copies of your pattern.
Some Fusible Bonding, I like Mistyfuse because it's light weight and won't gum up your sewing machine, but any light weight fusible will do and if you have a paperback one, well, that is just fine also.  You can also use a quilting spray adhesive, or a powder bonding agent like Bo-nash 007 bonding agent.
A nonstick ironing sheet or the paper from your heat and bond.
A variety of fabric pieces to construct your "Little House" and it's surrounding landscape.
Scissors, sewing machine, threads, embellishments.

Little House Quilts

I have been asked by The Quilter's Club of America to do a little tutorial online about how to make my "Little House Quilts".  I have been having fun putting this together.  When our youngest son and his wife purchased their first home I made a little quilt to commemorate that event.  Here is a picture of the house and a picture of their Little House Quilt.  There are things I would do differently but they were happy with it. So here it is

Now here is their Little House Quilt

A good start, but it get's better

The middle son was next, he and his wife purchased a home and so, of course, we had to make a little house quilt for them also.  They have a little boy and so I included some fun things like their dog running in the front yard and little kitties hiding in the bushes.

Here is their Little House Quilt

You can see that the technique progressed a little from the first one to the second one.  Perspective is better, not floating in air, the landscaping makes it look grounded.  

I will post my tutorial online here as well, so you can see how it's done.  Please let me know if you make one, I would love to see the pictures!  

Quilting The Blooming 9 Patch

Here it is mounted onto the quilting machine over at Deanna Wright's home.  She was kind enough to let me come and quilt it on her beautiful machine.  So much fun, looking forward to the next one!  I was delighted with how the quilting turned out and loved the thread selection that I made.  It looks like tiny thin pieces of confetti streamers across the top all free motion quilting.

Now I just have to stitch on the binding and then a finish picture will be forth coming!

Modified Bento Box Tutorial

I'm surfing tonight and found this tutorial...I see this one in my near future too...

http://www.filminthefridge.com/2009/06/24/quartered-squares-a-modified-bento-box-block-tutorial/

Some Boxy Stars by Other Quilters

These are some Boxy Star Quilts done by other quilters as shown on http://www.quiltville.com/boxystars.shtml



Boxy Stars Gallery

Boxy Stars Blocks Completed

This is my initial lay out, I may change a few things around before I finish the top.  Right now I'm going to live with it on my design wall for at least 24 hours.

Boxy Stars continued

I have three blocks up on my flannel board.  It's interesting what color does to a design, these are all the SAME blocks, just the value is different.

Starting Boxy Stars

I was looking at the scraps of batik that were left after I cut out my Batik Drunkard's Path quilt.  I recently joined an online quilting group and they have been making scrappy boxy star quilts from the pattern located at this web site: http://www.quiltville.com/boxystars.shtml

The pattern is very easy and it will be a great way to use up the bits I have left.  Here is the beginning of one of the blocks that I just made up.

I am stitching one extra seam before I cut each block, see below, which is creating another little 1/2 triangle square block for me to use in either the border or another quilt.

Here is how it looks when it's pressed out, it takes four of these to make the star.

So you would have 8 little squares left from one block.

I think this will turn out real pretty and it's a great way to use up my left over scraps!  I know this makes you happy Honey...no trips to the fabric store!  Saving $$$.  Still indulging my passion.

Batik Drunkard Design

So this is my next project, I will be doing two of these...one is a secret for a friend and the other is for us to enjoy.  I have picked out the fabrics and will start cutting it out this weekend.  The sewing room is coming along.  Got the chair put together yesterday, $19.00 at Walmart!  John brought in the 6 foot table and I put that where grandma's cedar chest used to be.  I vacuumed and shampooed the carpet yesterday.  Looks nice.  Today I will be moving the machines in and finish putting things away in their PROPER places.  Still have lots to do so I better get started, it's almost 9am and I've been up since 6 with not much to show for it...LOL.  I did watch a Shirley Temple movie this morning though!

My finished quilt will not be as "bright" as the one shown, I have muted colors but I think it will turn out nice, just couldn't find the exact run in my fabric libraries on EQ6.

Bowl of Fruit

Several years ago, I joined the Kelseyville Quilt Guild.  Great gals, lots of fun.  One of the projects was to take a photo and cut it into 12 pieces, each woman would take the photo home and translate their piece into a quilt block.  The blocks came back the next month and it would be your job to assemble them.  Below is the inspiration picture, I think the gals did a pretty good job.  I am still working on this with hand beading on the fruits and bits of leaves to cover areas that I think will need coverage.  It will make a nice wall hanging when I am done with it.  I think I'm going to piece in a bit of fabric on the left side where the block is a bit short.

The inspiration piece was out of a magazine, it was one of those decorator plates you could purchase to place on your wall.  I liked the vibe and the colors so...that was my selection.  When the gals translated it they used a variety of techniques, some dimensional which were very exciting to me.  I was a bit overwhelmed trying to figure out how I would get them all together so they sat for several years, until I joined the Colfax Junction Quilter's Guild and then I thought, heck, I'm gonna work to put this thing together.  I can't say that it was enjoyable trying to piece this together, but I am happy with the end result so far.