“Home Sweet Home” Quilt Along with

Kim’s Crafty Apple

My Tilted House

By Barbara Raisbeck, Quilts by Barb

My fabric choices:  I am using mostly overdyed fabrics for my “Home Sweet Home” quilt so I selected them for this block also.  I will tell you a little more about overdyed fabric at the end of this tutorial.

Fabric 1:  The house – I used a nice rich purple

                        Cut:     (1) 2 ½” X 10 ½”

             (3) 2 ½” X 4 ½”

             (1) 2 ½” square             

Fabric 2:  The door and chimneys – I used a red with gold sparkles

                        Cut:    (1) 2 ½” X 4 ½” for door

                                    (2) 2 ½” squares for chimneys

Fabric 3:  The roof – Brown with a design that looks like shingles

                        Cut:    (1) 2 ½” X 6 ½”

                                    (2) 2 ½” squares

Fabric 4:  The sky – A grayed/blue that looks like sky

                        Cut:    (5) 2 ½” squares

Fabric 5:  The window – I used a lime green like reflecting light

                        Cut:    (1) 2 ½” squares

Fabric 6:  The frame – I used a reddish orange strip that really framed my house.

Cut:    (4) 2 ½” X at least 13”.  I used a fat quarter and cut (4) widths   of the fat quarter.

Let’s put our house together:

Lay out your house pieces in rows as pictured. 

Row 1: sky-chimney-sky-chimney-sky

Row 2: sky/roof-roof-sky/roof

Row 3: house

Row 4 & 5:house-door-house-window/house-house

Now to assemble the house is really easy! 

First we are going to combine the roof and sky together into half square triangles.  I wanted to cut all my pieces at 2 ½” width so I am using a little different method.  Draw a line down the center of wrong side of your sky fabric.  Put sky and roof fabrics, right side together and sew ON THE LINE.

After you sew on the line, trim ¼” from the line.  Note your tails are already trimmed.  Press triangles open toward the sky fabric.  Make (2) sets of these half square triangles for the edges of your roof.  Put these back in place in your house lay out.

Next we are going to sew the rows together just as we have them laid out.  Starting at the top of your house:

Sew Row 1.  Press your seams toward the chimneys.

Sew Row 2.  Press the seams toward the half square triangles.

Row 3.  Just leave until we need it.

Row 4/5 – Sew window to top of house square.  Press toward house.  Then sew pieces together from left to right.  Doesn’t matter which way you press your seams.

We have all the rows of our house together so let’s sew the across rows together to form our house.

In the picture I have sewn my 1^st and 2^nd completed rows together.  Press seam toward chimney row.

Continue to add row 3 and 4/5 to house.  Doesn’t matter which way you press your seams.

Congratulations, you have a house!  The house should measure 10 ½” square, but guess, what; it doesn’t matter if it is a little large or a little small; we are going make it a tilted house. 

I forgot to take a picture of my finished house so this is cropped out of the house with border picture.  You will have a seam allowance of ¼” by your roof edges.  My mistake; I was too excited to tilt my house!

Now we are going to border our house and tilt it.  Sew one of the 2 ½” strips to the top and bottom of your house.  Press the seams away from the house and trim the ends even with the edge of your house.

Now sew the last 2 ½” border strips to the sides of your house.  Press seams away from house.  Isn’t it fun!

Take your large square, I used a 12 ½” square, and lay it on top of your block.  Tilt the square anyway you want as long as you don’t cut off your house.  I try to stay at least ½” away from all edges of my house.

Cut on all four sides of your square.  If you are using a larger than 12 ½” square, cut the finished house block to 12 ½”. 

PRINT your own PDF instructions of this block by clicking HERE.  

A little more about this block:  I use this method of tilted blocks a lot.  I love it for making T shirt quilts or orphan block quilts.  Chose something to coordinate the blocks and you have a lovely quilt.

This is a completed quilt that was made and donated at the 2009 Quilt Retreat Getaway Week using the house block from this tutorial. It now hangs in the Baymont Inn Convention Center in Belmont, Wisconsin.

This is an orphan block quilt that was made from quilt blocks donated by participants at the 2011 Quilt Retreat Getaway Weekend.  The blocks are set using the tilted method in this tutorial.  It was given to Marissa, a young girl who was in a car accident.

A little about overdyed fabric:  Overdyed fabric is regular commercial fabric that has been scoured and then overdyed with procion dyes.  I have done a lot of this type of fabric dyeing in the last couple of years and found it brings new life to some fabrics that were just so-so.

 I hope you enjoyed my tilted house.

 Barbara Raisbeck

Owner of Quilts by Barb

Please visit me on the web to learn more about our 10th Annual QuiltRetreat Getaway Weekend and our Summer Hand Dyeing Workshop that we are holding at Lapacek’s Orchard.  We would love to have you join us at either event!