TreadleOn HOUSES block exchange quilt

The finished quilt top

I had a lot of fun with this quilt.  First I had to make 10 house blocks to mail off to the captain of the exchange.  

My 10 exchange houses and some scrappy squares.

Then I had to wait for 10 different blocks to be mailed to me.  

When they came I decided that 10 blocks was a difficult number to work with and that even if I went up to 12 it would still be a tiny little quilt.  I decided I would need 15 house blocks.  Then I decided that I would add some trees to make it more interesting. And THEN I decided I would put some sashing between the houses to make the width a good size.  Since there was no color cohesiveness in the quilt the sashing had to be black and white.  Freddy Moran says so!

I really wanted to have some of the blocks that I had mailed away in my quilt so I decided to do my best to match them for the finished design. 

I liked the cat house I sent so this is the replacement

I went looking for a dog to put in the doghouse I wanted to make.  Instead I found this panel.  It was almost perfect as is.  I had to add some glow in the dark sky to make it the right size.

My dog house block 

I had the beach house all finished when I found the perfect sand fabric.  I HAD to rip out the bad sand and put it in.  Of course I don't have a separate picture of it corrected.  But you can see it in the finished top.  

The beach house

 I do not have a detail picture of this house.
Another cat in the window. ;-)
This is also the only detail of that tree.  

I wanted to have the snowy house in my quilt also.  I did a little tweeking with a lead pencil to make a track through the snow instead of a sidewalk.  I also did some enhancement of the smoke coming out of the chimney.

The winter house. 

After I made the 5 house blocks I made the trees.  I just measured the width of one row and decided how much space I had left in the three other rows and made the three trees that width.  Everything was 12.5 inches long so I didn't have to worry about deciding on a length.

The trees were created by a method I learned from Helen Howes. www.helenhowestextiles.co.uk. 

Her wonderful pattern Twelve Trees shows you the free form way to piece them. 

https://www.helenhowestextiles.co.uk/kitsandpatterns/treepatternsandkits.html

In these trees I decided to have grass or, in one case, leaves at the bottom of the background. Just like the houses I start with an oversized piece of fabric.  It is amazing how much better the blocks look once they are trimmed.  

This tree had added leaves.  

I was inspired by my yard full of fall leaves.

This tree was made before I decided to add grass. 
The trunk looks a little unnatural to me.  Oh well.

And finally, about that border.

The little squares on the border were me playing with scraps.  I decided some of my scraps needed to be larger so they got light fabrics at the corners. Then I had the idea to use them in this border because then I wouldn't need to decide on one border fabric.  I just used WOF strips of different colors that I had laying around for the border.  The left one is Kaffe's shot cotton and was 54" long so that helped keep it asymmetrical.

That's it for now,

Hugs,

Nancy