New Orleans House Project

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Scrappy Houses: Adding Wonky Borders

One of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects in 2013 was making house blocks using Bonnie Hunter's Happy, Scrappy Houses pattern.  I called my efforts the New Orleans House Project, and as I made my blocks, I tried to find New Orleans houses in the monthly challenge colors.  At the end of the year, I wasn't ready to assemble the blocks into a quilt top, so I put them away while I thought about how I wanted my New Orleans quilt to look.

These are my purple houses from 2013.  As you can see, I did not add the wonky borders Bonnie used on her blocks.  I finally decided those wonky borders were in keeping with how I wanted my finished New Orleans House Project quilt to look - so that's one of my RSC projects for this year. 

I don't want the wonky borders to be the same color as the house block, so I'll be picking the borders based on each month's RSC challenge color.  I looked through my purple scraps and matched scraps to houses.  I cut rectangles 3 inches by 12 inches for the borders.

The rectangles are cut diagonally lengthwise to create the border pieces.  The direction the lengthwise cut is made determines if the house runs "uphill" or "downhill".  The straight of grain side of each triangle gets sewn to the block.  

Plainly I need to be more careful about how I cut the border triangles if I want my houses to go uphill AND downhill!

There is more scrappy inspiration at the RSC weekly link-up.  I haven't had a chance to check out what everyone is working on, so I've got my evening's entertainment planned!




19 comments:

  1. i love your houses! they'll make a fun, cheery quilt when you're done with it...

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  2. What a great idea, and it will be a marvelous finish. Is your palette the three Marci Gras colors you've shown? This will be a fun one to watch.

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  3. Interesting idea to use the RSC color for the frames! Great way to keep moving the blocks forward instead of just accumulating more. (Like I seem to do...) (I should be taking notes...)

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  4. Your house blocks are going to be so cute in the wonky setting! I love the idea to cut the triangles from rectangles, rather than sew on straight borders and trim them to become wonky.

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  5. I'm so glad to see your wonky houses, which certainly fit the sad history. A thoughtful commemoration. I'm still trying to get the hang of it to make my boats sail up and down in the waves.

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  6. Hehehe. That is the same issue I had..... which is why they are still not set! I really should do exactly what you are doing and plan the outer color to the month to try and get it moving along this year. Your scrappy houses are so fun to see come back out to play.

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  7. SEW glad that you brought out a UFO for RSC17!! This method of participation is inspiring. I will look forward to your progress.

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  9. This is a great idea for your RSC17. These blocks will make a fun and interesting house quilt. I look forward to following along.

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  10. Your houses are so cute--I agree, having them wonky is much more fun!

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  11. The wonky setting is going to be perfect. Good luck with figuring out how to go downhill.

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  12. Glad to see you getting New Orleans houses situated!

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  13. It will be fun to see this progress...you probably have to deal with your local planning commission and such first :)

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  14. This will be great way to finish those cute houses combining the old with the new.

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  15. Oh, my! I am loving your little houses...wonky can be sew much fun!

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  16. I'm SEW glad the houses are back! I really enjoyed your project the first time.

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  17. Beautiful! Can't wait to see these all together. Love the colors!

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  18. I added the wonky borders to a Santa block quilt top several years ago. Since the blocks were from an exchange, it was also a great way to make all the blocks the same size. One of these days it might get quilted.

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  19. Love those house blocks! It's going to be a very fun quilt.

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