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:

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!

Click Here to check out the PRINT version

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