This little block took what seemed an eternity to sew! First, I made a poor decision about prep for this block. Looking at the house, I thought it might be best to just make templates to trace on the right side of the fabric, instead of back basting. But, I decided to backbaste and then proceeded to baste the house parts in the wrong order, more than a few times! Lori Smith makes great applique designs and does not mark the sewing order..this block could have used one, however I too could have been a bit smarter about it 🙂
I did finally get the layering I think correct for how a house would be built. Then the windows were appliqued with a dark brown fabric, but I ripped those out because it was just too dark and overwhelming…I didn’t want the house to appear it was night time! So I embroidered the windows. And I decided to take a risk and reverse applique the black “ovals” on the flowers, which meant very carefully cutting just the one layer of flower fabric to reveal the black underneath. The little gate in front of the house was supposed to have pointed picket style posts, but mine ended up round. Then those little tiny berries were the icing on the cake for my frustration level…even using plastic circle templates was difficult due to the size. This block spent a lot of time on my table in between sewing, I just got stubborn for a day or two in between each challenge.
The funny thing about all this is that no-one is going to be examining each applique block in a quilt as closely as I do! No one would have noticed if the roof didn’t overlap the house itself, or which part of the house overlapped the other, or if the fence posts were pointed or not!
A Quiltmaker's Album, Book Two 