I finished another one!  Here’s the Tiny House quilt all finished up.

Sorry about the photo; can you tell I’ve been super busy lately?  I can’t even take the time to make sure my photo is straight.  I can’t believe I thought that the “Big Stitch” quilting was going to go faster.  Of course it took me about a month to find the right thread and needles so that was one of the hold-ups on this quilt.

I definitely recommend using a needle threader.  With the extra big threads, you want to go with as small a needle as you can and you’re gonna want a needle threader.  I didn’t have one and had to use a larger needle.  (I’m happy I can pass along my lessons learned from all my mistakes.)  Also, with the big needle and such a small quilt, I ditched the quilting hoop right away.  I just couldn’t get the needle to go in and out with the fabric too taut.  It seemed like this type of quilting takes just as long as regular hand quilting.

It does give a rustic or folksy element to the quilt so that’s a lot of fun.  I didn’t quilt this quilt too heavily since it’s so tiny.

I think I’m going to give this big stitch quilting another try on my bigger house quilt but this time I want to try an all over pattern like a fan or something.  I’ll keep you posted…

These tiny house blocks have been taking up space on my design wall for several months now and I needed to do something with them.  I was taking my time trying to decide what color and what size sashing to use to put them all together.  And should I make 56 blocks or are 48 enough?  Finally, I just bought a neutral tan/brownish fabric and got busy.

I realized after I started putting the blocks together that the tan fabric was very similar to the mustard yellow fabric that I had chosen months ago for my border.  Oh well.

48 blocks was plenty.  I think I could have gone a little smaller with the sashing though.  Everything is on such a small scale here.  The sashing finished at 1 inch.  My blue border is 3/4 inch and my red border is 1/2 inch.  The entire quilt is 30 inches by 38 inches and turned out a little larger than I actually wanted.  I just wanted a small quilt to hang going up my stairs.  I love the dark primary colors which give the quilt a homey, country feel.

I bought enough of the sashing fabric to use as backing so my quilt is now sandwiched and ready to be quilted.  I want to try some “big stitch quilting” on this little quilt.  I’ve been watching videos on the internet to teach myself and now I need to get some thread and large needles and give it a try.  I think I’ll just go around each block and then around each border.  I can’t wait to show you how it turns out!

The number of my tiny houses is growing.  I have 48 now.

I just need 8 more to have 56.  I’m not sure if that number will be the amount that makes the right size quilt that I want.  And I’m still not sure what color fabric to use for the sashing.  I do know that I want to put little red blocks between the sashing.   Anyway, I just keep making more.

I’ve also been working on my spiderweb quilt and almost have 15 blocks done!  Only 5 more to go.  This is the part that isn’t too exciting; just sewing and making blocks.  I hope to have some finished quilt tops to show you soon.

I’ve been working on some tiny trees to go with my tiny houses.  I got the block from EQ7 and made it very small.  I also took the same block and modified it a little to make a slightly different block.

I think the trees break up the houses a little.

I’ll probably make a couple more tree blocks so they can be scattered throughout the quilt.  Then I need to get back to making the houses. (I haven’t made any houses since January!)  The other thing I would love to have in this quilt, if I can figure out how to do it, is a clothesline with a quilt on it.  The blocks are so tiny though that I’m not sure if I can make it work.

Here’s my tiny village – a work in progress.

I was getting a little bored with the tiny houses so I made a tiny church to go with them.

I found a church block on my EQ7 and modified it to match with the tiny houses.  I didn’t get it turned the right way but I didn’t realize that until it was finished.  There were some very tiny pieces so I wasn’t sure if things were going to look right.

It turned out cute but now I’m wondering what else I could make.  A barn? A school?  So many possibilities.

I’m so excited about this bag of scraps I bought this past week.  They’re small scraps but perfect for these tiny houses.  Hopefully I can get some more made this week.

I haven’t been making little houses everyday but I make a couple here and there when I think of it.

I have 25 of them done and since it’s January 29th, that’s almost one a day!

It’s fun to watch this little village grow and the good thing is I keep finding more little scraps of fabric to use.  It would be great not to make the same house twice but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do that.

These houses reminded me of a poem that I found recently that I wanted to share.  I had a part of it for years and loved it and then when I found the whole poem, I loved it even more.  It’s by American poet Edgar Guest who was popular in the early 20th century.

The Home

Write it down that here I labored,
Here I sang and laughed and neighbored;
Here’s the sum of all my story,
Here’s my fortune and my glory;
These four walls and friendly door
Mark the goal I struggled for.
Never mind its present worth,
Here’s one hundred feet of earth
Where the passerby can see
Every dream which came to me.

Write it down: my life uncloses
Here among these budding roses;
In this patch of lawn I’ve tended,
Here is all I’ve counted splendid;
Here’s the goal that’s held me true
To the tasks I’ve had to do.
Here for all the world to scan
Is my secret thought and plan;
Through the long years gone before,
This is what I struggled for.

Write it down, when I have perished:
Here is everything I’ve cherished;
That these walls should glow with beauty
Spurred my lagging soul to duty;
That there should be gladness here
Kept my toiling year by year.
Here in phlox and marigold
Is my every purposed told;
Every thought and every act
Were to keep this home intact.

                                                                                                       Edgar A. Guest

I wanted to show you how I’m doing with the tiny houses.  I have to admit that I haven’t been doing them everyday; more like every couple of days.

Not sure if I can make 365 of these.  But like I said, maybe 56 – one for each week.

I’m really excited about my new design board that these are pinned to.  I bought a large felt sheet for a design wall several years ago but I’ve been sewing in my dining room in the last 2 houses so I didn’t really have anyplace to put it.  Now I’ve taken over half of my basement family room and wanted to have someplace to put my works in progress.  The only problem is that we have those weird basement walls where the bottom half sticks out and I had large furniture on the inside walls and windows to work around.  But there was one 6 foot section of wall that I had my eye on.

Extruded Polystyrene Foam Board Insulation (Common: .5-in x 8-ft x 4-ft; Actual: 0.437-in x 7.937-ft x 3.875-ft)

Item #: 15348 |  Model #: 201549

$11.98

It was a little challenging getting it into the car but the guys at Lowe’s were nice to cut it down to 6 foot for me.  Then I just pushed and wedged and somehow got that thing home.  I stapled my felt sheet around it and set it up on the half wall and now I at least have a small design wall.

It’s nice to be able to move things around and stand back and see how they look.

Now my next step is to find some cubbies or shelves where I can put my fabric out and organize by color to see what I have.