Welcome once again to the resuscitated Scrap Quilt Challenge! All the specific rules of the challenge can be found by clicking HERE. This month (April 2020), I’m challenging you to be inspired by Houses! There are SO MANY tutorials out there for making house blocks! Feel free use to any and/or all of them! The scrappier the better! As I write all my fresh new month posts it is shocking to me how much things have changed since the beginning of March. First – I’m pretty sure March was the longest month ever! Things started out completely normal here is Wisconsin and by the end of the month we’re all at home and figuring out how to live without seeing other people or leaving the home. My family is doing very well and I really have no complaints other than I MISS PEOPLE! I do have a lot of quilting plans to keep my mind off things and I truly hope this is over soon. I thought that since most of us are being asked to stay in our homes that making a quilt full of different scrappy houses would be perfect!
Ok – enough rambling! I’ll share a list of some fun house block tutorials I’ve found that are either free or a low cost but first I’ll show you a house block I made up quickly to get you started.
One Way to Make a Scrappy House Block
As I work on projects and create scraps I put them under my cutting table into a bin. When my kids come and hang out with me I have them take the bin and put the fabrics away into the scrap bins I have organized by color. I decided to create my first house blocks using fabric only from the unsorted bin first.
Cutting Instructions
Fabric A (Brown – house)
(1) 4.5″ x 1.5″ rectangle
(2) 3.5″ x 1.75″ retangles
(1) 2.0″ square
Fabric B (white – window)
(1) 2.0″ square
Fabric C (black – roof)
(1) 2.5″ x 4.5″ rectangle
Fabric D (light blue – sky)
(2) 2.5″ squares
Construction
Sew the 2.0″ square together to make a 3.5″ x 2.0″ strip.
Sew the first corner of the sky to the roof fabric. You are making a flying geese block for the roof. If you don’t know how to do this I found a great tutorial that shows five different ways to make a flying geese block – HERE.
Sew the center 3.5″ x 2.0″ strip with one of the 3.5″ x 1.75″ rectangles. Press towards the 1.75″ rectangle.
Sew the second corner of the sky to the roof fabric.
Sew the final 3.5″ x 1.7″ rectangle onto the sewn rectangle.
Also sew the 1.5″ x 4.5″ rectangle to the 2.5″ x 4.5″ flying geese block.
Sew the final two pieces together.
Before you know it you’ll have a fun little house block! The final block measures 4.5″ x 6.5″.
Make a bunch of these and put them all together for your scrap quilt or use whatever other patterns you want! I think I’ll be making lots of different house blocks and then putting them all together into one big village in the end!
Here are some other patterns/tutorials I’ve found! They’re either free or have a small fee to them.
- Village Quilt PDF Pattern
- Stay At Home Pattern
- Lovely House Quilt Block (paper pieced)
- Grandma’s House Quilt Block (paper pieced)
- Tiny Ticky Tacky Houses
- Scrappy Wonky House Block Tutorial
- Weathervane Neighborhood Block Tutorial
- Woodland Neighborhood Block Tutorial
- Mount Home Block Tutorial
- Dresden Neighborhood Pattern
Get Started
You have a year to start-and-finish a scrap quilt comprised mostly of House blocks (I have a feeling mine will need some trees in it too!). When you have a quilt finished (minimum size 45″ x 60″) link a picture below for a chance to win a prize. The deadline for the House block quilt linked entries is April 15, 2021.
Share progress photos on instagram with hashtags #SQChallenge20 and #SQhouse and/or in the Scrap Quilt Challenge Facebook Group.
Be sure to read through all the rules on the Scrap Quilt Challenge Page HERE before you get started.
If the idea of making a scrappy barrister’s block quilt is making you panic please don’t! Each of these challenges are supposed to fun and inspiring and to help you use up those scraps! You DO NOT have to participate in each month! Just choose the months that make you inspired and happy!
Link up right below here your Scrappy House Block quilts by April 15th, 2021.
Awesome challenge! Love the tiny houses. Want to make one of these! Very fun.
I think this would be a fun challenge. I Have a question. It says in the rules that we are to pick from one of the months blocks and then build the quilt using that block as inspiration. Where do I find all the other month’s posted? I found this one and January but so far that is all the blocks I can find. And also, are we limited to just one block featured as inspiration or can we use several months of blocks or one of ea. to make the complete quilt out of by years end. Thanks for any help you can share .
They’re all listed on this page: https://kimlapacek.com/scrap-quilt-challenge The block featured should be the “star” of the scrap quilt. It’s fine to mix other things in as well but folks should know that the quilt is for example “a nine patch” or a “pineapple” quilt.
Thanks again, Kim. I have never been much of a joiner, but I am loving this. 😁