Showing posts with label QAYG. Show all posts

Saturday, August 29, 2026

Burano House Transported to Quilter's Cove

Hi and welcome to our monthly link-up of A Quilter's Cove QAL. We've been following the Rainbow Scrap Challenge colours for our houses. Since it's the end of August, this is our eighth house. I've been enjoying our monthly house making even, or maybe because, I make them at the last minute. This one was no exception. So here we go! If you're looking for the I Quilted This! link up, please click here.

Burano Houses on the Canal

I've been wondering how to make a cohesive quilt out of my blocks. Since there is a block of green houses in Nyhavn (New Harbor), along the canal in Copenhagen, I decided to make another block of canal houses. These are from Burano, an island near Venice, Italy. It's renown for it's colourful houses and making the most amazing lace.

Here are my Burano houses.

August's yellow house - from Burano

One of the reason that I chose Burano was to make those curtains in front of the doors. It was late fall when I visited so there were only a couple of houses that had them. They are used to give privacy when it's hot and the door needs to be opened to let the air circulate in the home. Locals call them "tende pal sol" or curtains for the sun.

For the smaller green house, I made the door like the one I had taken a photo of in Burano. It's so lovely, but unlike the one in my block, it's not crooked.😁

Photo taken in 2018 of a lovely Burano door

Process

After deciding on making a Burano house block, I looked at many images online. I then made a sketch of my own rendition of the houses. I just had to add the door curtain and match them with the window blinds. The image below was taken after it was mostly finished but before the sashing was added and the FMQ was done.

The house block before the sashing and FMQ

I was able to FMQ the house block but didn't do any quilting on the sashing (the window border). I'd love to make something interesting for all of the houses, so I'll have to wait and figure it out. I also want to give myself space to put together the QAYG.

For this block, I used a bright red backing fabric - the same that I used in Sarah's Blue Jays T-shirt. The backings will be different but will all have fabric of houses or of home. I didn't have anything obviously Italian, so Ontario novelty fabric will do.

Very bright Ontario novelty fabric

What I learned

I'm so happy that I had time to quilt my first quilt-as-you-go (QAYG) house block. What a difference it makes to add all of those details.
Did you notice the small white round shape at the top of the block? It's a piece of vintage lace to commemorate Burano's lace making.
It's not going to happen quite yet, but I am looking forward to quilting all of the house blocks.
This was the fastest that I've done a house block yet. Maybe it's because it was more realistic but it came together quite nicely. It probably helps that this is our 8th house.
I thought that this block was all nice and straight, until I took a picture and noticed the slightly crooked door. Oh well, it seems to be a signature thing for me😉
Next month is purple. I wonder what that will bring? I may have been researching elves' homes on Iceland...

Related links

A Quilter's Cove QAL, main page on Kat's blog
Linking party for I Quilted This! and A Quilter's Cove QAL, July 30, 2026
Converting House Blocks to Quilt-As-You-Go and I Quilted This! July 02, 2026
A Pastel House in Quilter's Cove QAL, June 27, 2026
An Orange House in Quilter's Cove QAL, May 30, 2026
A Pink House in Quilter's Cove QAL, April 27, 2026
A Fun Red House for A Quilter's Cove QAL, March 28, 2026
A Quilter's Cove QAL for February, February 28, 2026
A Quilter's Cove QAL Link-up and SAHRR, January 31, 2026

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties, including the latest I Quilted This! You may want to check some of them out! Monday Musings, Design Wall Monday, Sew & Tell,

Here is the link to the I Quilted This linking party.

It's now your turn 😍

Thursday, July 02, 2026

Converting House Blocks to Quilt-As-You-Go and I Quilted This!

Hello and welcome 😎 With the hot and muggy summer here, I'm mostly estivating, except when it's cool enough to have my first coffee outside. I'd rather spend some quality time in my studio than wilt in the garden. I can take the heat, sort of, if it's not too muggy out so we'll see where I end up spending my summer!

Quilt-As-You-Go (QAYG) House Blocks

I was planning on doing this after I finish FMQ my Rainbow Neighbourhood quilt but I just couldn't help it. For my Quilter's Cove QAL, I bought a few brown fabrics for the window sills and really wanted to see what it would look like in an Attic Window setting. Here they all are.

Six houses now as attic window blocks

Attic Window

If you're not familiar with the attic window block, here's what's happening. To create the attic window, I have added the inside of what looks like a window sill to the house block. That's the dark vertical brown, and then the light brown strip at the bottom. Doesn't that look like you're looking at the house through a window? The light pink/gray fabric on the side and on top are the sashing that separate the windows and add contrast.

Attic Window added to the orange house block

Because of my total lack of planning, you can see that the window ledge is cutting up the roof of the orange house. I measured all of my blocks and decided that they would each be 9" x 10½". That means that the orange, pastel and pink blocks were trimmed while I had to add an extra strip to the red, blue and green blocks. Here's what I did.

For the red house I needed to add ¾" to the width of the block. I wanted to keep it simple so I found hand-dyed scraps for the sky and the lawn. Not perfect but really good enough once the attic window and sashing are added.

Adding fabric to the side of the block

Trimming the extra fabric on the block

Here is the finished block.

The added strip doesn't show much on the red house block

Here's what my first house, the blue one, looked like when I originally made it. It was the smallest block of the batch.

My original blue house was much smaller

Here's what it looks like after adding a couple of inches to the width as well as embellishment.

Updated blue house as an attic window block

For the green Danish houses, I needed to add ¾" to the width of the block. Here's what it originally looked like.

The green block was not quite wide enough

If you look carefully, you can see that the dark brown vertical sill is just a tad wider than the sill.

Adding a ½" of dark brown to the green houses block

Quilt-As-You-Go

Now that the houses are in attic window blocks, the next part will be to quilt-as-you-go. It's exactly what it's called. I'll be adding batting and a backing to each attic window block and will quilt them separately. It's easier to quilt a smaller block than it is a full quilt. Once it's FMQ, you stitch the fronts together and then the backs. Probably not quite as simple as it sounds but it's not too difficult. Hopefully I will have considered everything while I converted the blocks to attic windows. I'll deal with it once all of the blocks have been quilted. That's a problem for future me 😁

What I learned

When I decided to put the houses in attic window blocks, I did a lot of research on how there were done. Finding free patterns on the internet helped a lot.
Getting all of the blocks to be the same size was a challenge but I love that kind of problem solving! 😊
I have no idea why I assumed that the window sills needed to be brown (when I looked at the window sills in our house, they're all white!) Anyway it worked out well.
I'm really happy that I found the pink/gray fabric for the sashing in my stash. I think it's perfect. Since I now have lots of brown fabric, I might use one of these for the backing. I need to choose before I start the QAYG.
I'll share the QAYG when I start it, probably in August since I now have to get back to my Rainbow Neighbourhood quilt.
I like the way the additions to the two blocks, the red and the blue houses, came out. Adding extra fun elements to the blue house made it easier to hide the addition!

I Quilted This!

Welcome to the I Quilted This! linking party that celebrates quilting on a domestic machine or custom quilting on a long-arm. Feel free to link up and share any recent project, even if you're not quilting it!

Here are the posts that included FMQ, ruler work and walking foot quilting last week. Thanks for linking up 😊 and consider grabbing the button.

Gwyned Trefethen is eagerly anticipating the return of her Bernina but meanwhile she made a wholecloth sampler of FMQ designs.

FMQ sampler by Gwyned

The writer of Based On A True Story blog finished her Carousel Quilt which she had first posted about in 2017! The quilt is really stunning although the border didn't cooperate. She finished it and it looks great - without the border!

BTW, I haven't been able to leave a comment on your blog, so thanks for linking up!

A lovely Carousel Quilt finish

Melva finished a lovely ABC quilt. It looks wonderful, even if it wasn't in the colour way she was hoping for. Sometimes you have to go with the scraps you have!