36. How to Piece a House Block

We’ve really booked it this month, flying through all our Disappearing Nine Patch blocks AND our Spinning Square Blocks. Through September we’re going to move more slowly piecing and quilting our cute Home Sweet Home block:

free motion quilting | Leah Day

free motion quilting | Leah Day
I really love this block and all the little pieces that come together to make the design! It’s going to be loads of fun to piece, and even more fun to free motion quilt with beautiful designs.

Two notes from the pattern: the last three pieces – shapes L and M are both cut a bit long. After piecing the L shapes in place, trim up the edge of your block, then piece shape M and trim up again if you like.

I designed these pieces a bit big so you wouldn’t cut the strips exactly to size and find it’s not quite long enough to fit. With all the many pieces here it’s easy to get off and have the block grow progressively from the inside out. Just remember to stop and square and you’ll be on the right track!

It’s never too late to join in this fun quilt along and start learning how to piece and quilt all these pretty blocks. All you need to get started is the Building Blocks Quilt Pattern.
free motion quilting | Leah Day
Click Here to check out the PRINT version
free motion quilting | Leah Day
Click here to check out the DOWNLOAD version

Yes, I pretty much always stitch over my pins when matching tricky seams. So long as you stitch SUPER slowly over the pin, your needle will usually bend around the pin rather than hit it directly. It’s a habit I got into back when I sewed 50+ garments a week and I still haven’t lost that habit!

So now that you know how to piece a house block, how many houses do you want to make? I’d love to make a set of orange, brown, and red houses for the fall, and maybe some red and green houses for the winter, and red and white houses for Valentine’s Day…I think this is one block that could work for any time of the year!

Let’s go quilt,

Leah Day

LeahDay

Leah Day has been teaching online since 2009. She's the creator of the Free Motion Quilting Project, a blog filled with thousands of quilting tutorial videos. Leah has written several books including 365 Free Motion Quilting Designs, Explore Walking Foot Quilting with Leah Day, and Mally the Maker and the Queen in the Quilt.

3 Responses

  1. Jessim says:

    It's funny- when I learned to sew, the teacher would actually yell at us if we took time to take the pins out when stitching. But now with computerized machines, I've been told hitting a pin can really mess up the timing, so I try to remember to take them out. But sometimes I just go with the slow approach like you said 🙂

  2. Lou says:

    I have been looking forward to this block – I think it is SO cute. Another great design Leah, I will be making some fall ones too.

  3. I also go with the super slow approach to pins. that we I can guarantee my points and joins match. However, my current tutor tells us not to pin at all and she doesn't like us to press our seams open either!. As long as what you do works – go for it. After all, its all about having fun1

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