Yippee! December Block of the month and Christmas bonus

Yippee!  December Block is here with a Christmas Bonus

Hello Everyone!

I am finally back.  I have been on a bit of a piecing frenzy with lots going on and I will try and give you another blog tomorrow to fill you in on some of them.  But lets get to business with the Block of the Month.

Firstly I must thank all of you for being so patient and joining in with the Block of the Month this year.  I am excited how this is coming together.  I will be attempting to complete my hand pieced blocks over the next couple of weeks to get that part of this up to date also.

Right what will we need?  6 fabrics this time and some of them not a real lot, so get the box of fabrics you are using and lets get started.

6 Fabrics are required for this months bom

I have designed a house block using a reformed 9 patch block for us to signify going home for Christmas.  I hope you like what I have done. Let me say that although I worked out my measurements on paper I must have had such a blonde moment as today I had to change the roof and the sides.  So here goes.

Cutting List:-

for sky 2 x 3.5" squares 

for the roof on 3.5" x 12.5" rectangle

for door 3.5" x 6.5" rectangles

for walls 3.5" x 9.5"rectangles and 2 x 3.5" squares

for windows 2 x 3.5" squares

and for sides of house 2 x (9.5" x 2")

Please note this is it all laid out before I realised the mistakes I made.  But it will give you an idea of what we are doing.  So please bear with me.

house block laid out but will be adjusted

ready to stitch 

No I would like you to stitch the house body first.  Join the window squares to the wall squares to form 2 rectangles.   Press seams to the walls or downward.  We then join these units to either side of the door and press seams towards the centre of the unit.   Finally we will place the upper part of the house unit on to form the front of the house.

House front all joined

It was right here that I realised my initial calculations I had made the roof to high and the sides to wide.  So our final house block will not have a roof looking like this.  Please attach the sides of the house block either side of the house front then we will do the roof.

For the roof, mark a line diagonally through the centre of your sky squares and lay on either end of the roof rectangle.  Sew directly on this line from corner to corner.  Remember to place your pieces of fabric right sides together   We will then cut the excess fabric off and press the triangle outwards on either end to form the roof.   

Lastly we will sew the roof onto the top of the house front and Voila!  here we are ready to go home for Christmas!  You may wish to add a little button for the door handle and another for a bell or just embroider one on.

house block complete

Now lets look at our 12 blocks together from the past year.   I'm really happy with this, but I do like to play with how I layout a quilt.  So I have been looking at fun ways to do this and I have found one.  Now if you would like to make this quilt into a larger quilt and don't want to add just normal sashing come and make some of our bonus blocks and over the next couple of months I will take you through how I plan to piece this quilt.  I will also catch up on the hand pieced top and continue giving you photos.

Our Twelve Blocks together!

Bonus Block!

Now I did promos a bonus block and for me it is still the humble 9 patch block but this time we will make it only at 6.5".  This is then known as a 6" finished block as that is what it will be in the finished quilt.   I plan to use 28 of these blocks with one other fabric and a plain dark grey solid for some small sashing.  

Cutting list:-

from the various fabrics you have left please cut 2.5" squares and use two fabrics in each consisting of 5 squares of 1 fabric and 4 of the other fabric.  Refer to January 9 patch block, the piecing is the same just the cutting is different

the little humble 9 patch!

Please let me know if you are enjoying this.  I have another planned and am finalising all the details over the next couple of weeks and will let you know about this one.  Due to a few things happening in my personal life with one of my girls becoming engaged I have a few extra things to do so I am planning on doing this when things settle down.  I want to have this all worked out well in advance so that you are all not hanging on a thread for a couple of weeks like which has happened this month.

Also I have come to fine out about this quilt which is going to be put up on the Bernina blog and has been translated from the Netherlands blog.  I am planning to do it so I may learn new skills to enhance my quilt making and sewing.  I figure even just by reading this you may learn a few things about your machines whether they are Berninas or other brands.  I hope you have a read of Sylvia's Crazy Colours Mystery here
Finally many many thanks and I hope you are all having a wonderful time preparing for Christmas and are not too stressed.  I understand this is not always a happy time for everyone but I challenge you to remember a happy moment in time past and hold on to it and relive it in the best possible way you can.

Until my next post.


Have a wonderful day,

Wendy.