Welcome to Week 1 of the Halloween Houses Quilt Along. If you missed the introductory post click here to find out all about it and grab the blog button for your blog. You can download the free "Halloween Houses" pattern from my Craftsy shop.
I made three YouTube video tutorials to go along with this series and I am sharing the first one on the blog today. There will be two more videos over the next two Fridays. I will release them on YouTube on Wednesdays though so if you don't want to wait until Friday you can see them over there early (click on the YouTube mason jar in the sidebar).
Here is the first video. If you are an experienced quilter you don't need to watch this but sometimes it's fun to just veg out and watch someone make something for two minutes. :)
Here is the applique house which will be in the second video.
Here is the improv house which will be in the third video. If you are making these ahead don't forget that you sew in the doors and windows before putting the background corners on and if you want a chimney you sew that into the background corner before sewing that corner on as well.
This past summer I bought two of these Riley Blake "Postcards for Santa" charm packs on a whim without a plan. I was looking at them today when an idea struck.
"These would be perfect as little Christmas Houses," I thought.
First I have to let you in on a little secret just between you and I... you can make these houses out of just about any size of square you want. In the case of this table runner I used 5" charm squares. All you do is measure your square, divide it in half and add a quarter inch and you will know what size to cut your background squares.
In the case of the charm squares they are 5 inches. Divide by 2 = 2.5" add a quarter inch so your background squares are 2 3/4 inches.
"Christmas Houses Table Runner" by Daydreams of Quilts.
Now have you ever had a friend or a relative that you weren't planning to exchange Christmas gifts hand you a gift in the last week before Christmas and you thought to yourself "Oh gosh-darn it I don't have a gift for them."? And then your mind is reeling and you stammer out like an idiot "Oh, I'm still working on yours. I'll have it ready for you before Christmas though." And then you are wanting to strangle yourself because you already have a million things to sew before Christmas. No? Oh, it's just me then.
But let's just say you did need to sew a quick gift... this little table runner took me about an hour and a half to piece. You might want to sew up a couple just in case the above scenario does happen to you.
To make this you need:
14 x 5" charm squares
1 fat quarter
1 x 3 1/2 by width of fabric strip
batting, backing and binding
How to:
Take 14 charm squares that you think would look good as houses.
Cut four 2 3/4 inch strips from a fat quarter and sub cut 28 x 2 3/4 inch background squares
Sew a 2 3/4 inch background square onto each corner as we do for the Halloween Houses in the pattern. Cut a 3 1/2 inch by width of fabric strip for the snowy street. (I used Kona bone)
After sewing the houses together in two rows of seven sew them on either side of the street strip facing each other as they would be on an actual street.
Cut four 1 1/2 inch strips from the remainder of your fat quarter. Sew two together end to end and repeat to make a second one.
Sew these two strips onto both long sides of your table runner.
Layer with batting and backing, quilt and bind.
I haven't quilted mine yet but I think I will quilt in doors and possibly a window on each house. :)
Have fun sewing houses. If you are on Instagram please use the hashtag #HalloweenHousesQAL so we can all see what everyone is making.