Wednesday, June 21, 2017

I Love House Blocks - Two New House Quilts!!!

Can I just say I am so excited for today!!!!  Secret Sewing is so hard to keep a secret ;)   So let's now wait a minute more and get right to sharing the quilts!!!
This is  The Street Where You Live .

and this is Home Is Where The Heart Is.   

 And I just love both of them!!!!  I made these two quilts almost a year ago for the newly released I Love House Blocks book and I have been so excited to share them ever since.  I just love these happy house quilts.  There is something so warm and snuggly about a quilt made of house blocks.  And this book is jam packed with 14 awesome quilts that just give you that happy to be home warm fuzzies.



So let me tell you a bit about my two quilts found in I Love House Blocks.   First up is The Street Where You Live.   And this one has a fun little story behind the design inspiration.  A few days after I received the invitation to submit some designs for an all House Block book, I was watching My Fair Lady.  And as Freddie was singing "I'm on the street where you live." I noticed the beautiful English Row Houses behind him and just thought, Perfect!!!!  I paused the movie, grabbed my sketch pad that I keep in my night stand, and before you know it, I had the cutest little English Row houses all happy and ready to be stitched.


And I just about flipped when I was looking at fabric options and came across Carina Gardner's Apricot and Persimmon Line.   How perfect are these prints and colors.  They just so reminded me of all of the wonderful costumes they dressed Eliza Doolitle in.  Doesn't that black and white just remind you of the beautiful dress Eliza wore to the race track.  It was just the perfect fit!!!


I decided to use 4 different window orientations in the house blocks.  I love the variety it adds to the quilt while still keeping the piecing nice and easy.   And the rows are put together using varying strip width's so you can really arrange your row houses in any order you like.   Again, I just love that it gives each row it's own long and really gives a neighborhood feel to the quilt.


When it came time to quilt it, I decided it needed something fancy, I mean this is a My Fair Lady inspired project right.  Fancy was a must :)    So I quilted an all over feathered swirl.   This is one of my favorite free motion quilting designs to give a beautiful texture and flow to the quilt top.  It's sort of my calligraphy of quilting ;)


And I have to say, I just love the black and white stripe binding on this quilt!!!  It is such the perfect way to finish it up.   So striking!!!  Especially next to the beautiful peach background ;)


And that is On The Street Where You Live, ya I named it after it's inspiration ;)    It measures 64" x 72" and it oh so much fun to make.   It's just perfect for beginners and experts alike.   I hope you just love it as much as I do ;)


And the second project I am blessed to have featured in I Love House Blocks is Home Is Where The Heart Is.   When I started brainstorming for design ideas I kept having the phrase, home is where the heart is come back to my mind.  It was something my mother said a lot when I was growing up and something I try to keep in mind as I raise my own family.    So I started thinking how an I share a Heart in a home . . . and this is what I came up with.


These little houses are so much fun to make.  And I just love the little heart cornerstones :)   So cute!!!   And I added some two sided sashing to the houses to give the quilt some movement.  I love that it just makes this neighborhood truly a place I would want to visit.


I used Bonnie and Camille's Little Ruby fabric for this quilt.   The colors were the perfect fit for the feel that I was trying to create, and all of the tiny prints really let the houses and the hearts in them shine.   And it was so much fun that there were so many wonderful Red prints in the line so there is lots of variety in all of those hearts ;)


When it came time to quilt it, I again decided I wanted something that really flowed to break up all the sharp points in the houses.   So I quilted it with an all over echoed paisley design, which is always a fun go to for lots of movement and curves.   I did a video tutorial right here on how I free motion quilt this, if your interested ;)


And look at that yummy texture it makes.   Oh so warm and snuggly.   I just love it.   I used my go to 402 Pearl thread for the quilting.  It is just the perfect color on that wonderful white background, blends enough to not take away from the design, but you can still see that it is quilted ;)


And the way you cut out and piece this quilt leaves you with a few extra Flying Geese, so I thought, how cute to make a fun pieced back!!!!  I love that this used up all of the little orphan pieces, I have enough of those already ;)    The directions for how to add up this little feature are included in the book and I just think it is the perfect finish for this quilt ;)


And that is Home Is Where The Heart Is, and again, when it came time to name it, the inspiration just stuck :)  The quilt measures 60" x 76" and would make a perfect give for someone special.  The quilt truly is all about the heart and I again, hope you love it as much as I do ;)


And those are my two House Quilts from the new I Love House Blocks Book!!!  And I am just so excited to finally get to share them ;)  Oh, and I have to add, I was pretty excited when I got my copy of the book and found that both of my quilts made a little cameo on the cover!!  Eeekk, so fun!!!


 There are lots of amazing House Blocks in this book and so many quilts that I have added to my "to make someday" list from it so be sure to Pop on over to  Martingale, the book publisher, to see all of the beautiful quilts ;)   And they just might be celebrating the release with a Giveaway as well!!!  So fun ;)   I Love House Blocks is now available wherever quilting books are sold and  if you would like a signed by me copy, I have a few available in my little book shop here!!

Thanks so much for popping in today and each day!!!  I am just so excited daily to share my quilting adventures here ;)

Have a Happy Quilting Day!!!

Linking up these finishes to Amanda's, Sarah's, and Myra's ;)

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15 comments:

  1. House blocks are so fun. We were going Around the Block last year & Home Sweet Home with the 1016 Row by Row theme. I agree it is hard to keep fun things a Secret for so long.

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  2. They're adorable!! I love your my fair lady inspiration!

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  3. I love house blocks, too! They are gorgeous!

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  4. What an overachiever you are! :-) Good for you having TWO quilts published in one book. They are both wonderful.

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  5. Love them both! Beautiful quilting on the row houses...and you kept it a secret for a year!?? I'm impressed.

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  6. What a fun idea for a book. Your two contributions are great.

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  7. The house quilts are really neat--I especially like the row houses in "On the Street Where You Live".
    bjkaup(at)(abbnebraska)(dot)(com)

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  8. I love how you wrote your thought process to come up with these quilts. Fascinating!

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  9. I love the street quilt, I have now gone over to Amazon and put the book on my wish list.

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  10. Love your quilts Melissa!! I sure do love house blocks too, and your home is where the heart is quilt is so cute!! Hugs, H

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  11. Love, love both of your house blocks and quilts!! Such beautiful detail in each house and the way they come together. Love the quilting you did on each. I'm so looking forward to buying this book!

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  12. These are so cute and that orange and pink and black fabric is just fabulous!

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  13. I love both of these--and am thinking they would both make wonderful designs for donation quilts to people who are starting a new life (such as refugees or people that are moving into a Habitat for Humanity home). I'm impressed by your quilting. I haven't been brave enough to try swirls or paisley, but this makes me want to.

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  14. love the house with the heart

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Thank you so much for your sweet comments. I just love hearing from you!!
Have a Happy Quilting Day :)

Melissa