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Making a house a home out of the improv quilting wonky house block

Making a house a home out of the improv quilting wonky house block

by Jean Boyd

Yesterday I showed you how I used the PFAFF Expression™ 4.2 to make an improv pieced house block. Today I’ll be making another improv house, this time with a window and a chimney. Let’s get started!

Improv house made using the PFAFF Expression™ 4.2

Improv house made using the PFAFF Expression™ 4.2

Remember this is improv piecing – you can make the strips any size you like!

For this house, I made the door unit the same as for the house I made yesterday and then added 1 strip of wall fabric. To make the window unit, I sewed 2 pieces of wall fabric to the window fabric. Then I sewed a wall strip to each side of the window unit and sewed this to the door unit. As with yesterday’s house, I then added a piece of sky fabric to each side and then sewed on the roof.

Door unit and one strip of wall fabric

Door unit and one strip of wall fabric

Window unit with wall fabric strips sewn on each side

Window unit with wall fabric strips sewn on each side

Window unit sewn to door unit

Window unit sewn to door unit

At this point, this symbol showed up on the graphic display screen on the front of the PFAFF Expression™ 4.2 to tell me that my bobbin was almost empty. Of course, I kept sewing, but this machine is very smart. It only let me sew a few stitches and then stopped again. Finally, it just wouldn’t let me sew anymore, so I had to stop and fill the bobbin. You’ll never sew with an empty bobbin on the Expression™ 4.2!

Filling the bobbin was very easy — I just followed the excellent diagrams and instructions in the manual.

Empty bobbin symbol on the front of the PFAFF Expression™ 4.2

Empty bobbin symbol on the front of the PFAFF Expression™ 4.2

Now I’m back to house construction and I’m ready to add a chimney to the roof. I sewed a narrow piece of chimney fabric to 2 pieces of sky fabric. Remember to sew every seam on an angle to create your wonky house! Trim off the extra chimney fabric and sew this unit to the roof.

Sew a chimney strip to 2 pieces of sky fabric.

Sew a chimney strip to 2 pieces of sky fabric.

Sew chimney unit to the roof.

Sew chimney unit to the roof.

Sew some sky pieces to the sides and grass to the bottom and you now have a house with door, window and chimney!

Sew a piece of sky fabric to each side of the roof.

Sew a piece of sky fabric to each side of the roof.

Sew 2 pieces of grass fabric to the bottom of the house.

Sew 2 pieces of grass fabric to the bottom of the house.

Trim the block to whatever size you want. Remember to save the cut-off pieces for another improv house!

Trim the block to the desired size.

Trim the block to the desired size.

Come back tomorrow to see how I used the PFAFF Expression™ 4.2 to add some decorative stitches to my improv wonky house.

This is part 3 of 5 in this series.
Go back to part 2: Improv quilting – what’s it all about?

Go to part 4: Using decorative stitches effectively to enhance a quilt block

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