Remember my quick series of house quilt tops? I really wanted to learn to make “houses”.

Let me show you quickly what I’m talking about if I remember them all. They were not done in this order.

Ok. I am surprised I’ve already made this many- this year. I’ve learned by now that I’m reasonably comfortable making house quilt blocks now.

Well, this is CRÈME DE LA CRÈME in this series of house quilts.

A Quilter’s Cottage by Lori Holt

When I was in Florida this past time, I picked up this book that we had there in the store. You can get yours here.

I will say that I made this top in three days - the first day I did the house and trees.

The second day— the picket fence and flowers rows were enough for one day.

And then the third day - the quilt blocks row and borders of which I managed to make enough mistakes to have to pull things out and redo them. But, I finished!

I also went back and fixed the peak of the roofline as there wasn’t any seam allowance and I would cut off the point of the house had I not gone back and redone the left side of the house roofline.

It was so much fun.

I have not added the rickrack where she wanted me to put it on for the clothesline and the smoke out of the chimneys. I probably wouldn’t really need smoke coming out of the chimneys when the flowers are blooming, but I suppose we can pretend, right? It looks cool, if not really realistic. Around here, when you need heat, pretty much the only flowers blooming are the bulbs like tulips and crocus, etc.

However, I did not have any rickrack. I’ve been debating putting on some string for the clothes line instead of rick rack - but I did order some rickrack which will probably be in before this blog post goes live. I still haven’t fully decided if I want to use some sort of white string or twine for the clothes line intead of rickrack. Also…I’m still deciding if I should quilt it first and then add the clothesline — I’m still thinking about this.

I did not use a Lori Holt fabric for the background. I didn’t have eough of any one kind. Instead, I found some similar colored solids - though not really the robin’s egg blue that I really wanted. This one is really a mint green - a darkish one. It appeared to me to be the best one of my choices. I bought this solid fabric here in Poland locally. While I brought a fair bit of fabric back with me in my suitcases :) I knew I could find solids here, so I didn’t want to fill up my suitcase with things I could find here. I preferred to bring things I can’t easily get here.

I did use almost all Lori Holt fabrics on this top as this is one of her patterns. However, I did not use very many of the ones she shows in the book. I think the only one I did use was the blue floral which is the dark part of the house. The light blue house fabric isn’t a Lori Holt fabric and obviously the background isn’t as I used a solid. I also uses a solid white for the picket fence and not a print with a pattern in it which is what the pattern shows. I also used a solid gray for the clothesline posts and one of the cobblestone fabrics- the solid gray was a duvet cover that I got second hand and I’m almost out of the fabric as I’ve used it a lot in various projects.

So you can see, I got the effect without using all her fabrics. :) I do have plenty of her fabrics now, though, as I brought back a suitcase or more full back of them. But I have several of her quilts I want to make.

I can see as I look at this picture that the bottom left quilt on the line's binding doesn't show up very well against the background fabric. I think it does a bit better in person than in the photo.

I am so glad I decided to take a year or so and make some quilts that I wanted to make ‘just because’ and not only the scrap kind.

HOWEVER,

Let’s see though, I’ve finished quite a few scrap quilts in 2024 so far. I think I’ve done these tops - which are in the 2.5” series. I need to get 5 more done to reach my goal for 2024. Hmm. I have several baggies full of blocks but have to make the sashings. I also want to work on my Double Irish Chains with different color placements.