We’re almost done with the Quilt along!
This week we’ll work on this house block
and FPP star block
The house I’ll give the option of either FPP or a mix of FPP (roof) and then plain piecing.
The star is all Foundation Paper Pieced
First you have to download the templates
Here’s the House block (4 pages)
Or if you just want the ROOF for partial FPP click here
And the star block here
*Side note- I actually messed up and reversed the house block(s) if you do all FPP it won’t happen, if you do a mix, you’ll have to pay attention to how to piece it together (My chimney ended up on the front of the house instead of the back)
Some good tools for FPP are these yellow 1/4” rulers, they have a lip on the bottom of the ruler to help with trimming, but don’t worry if you don’t have these, just use a regular ruler and trim to 1/4”
Print the paper templates and loosely trim around each piece, I use the rotary cutter and I know some of the templates “cut” off part of the 1/4” seam allowance when printing, don’t worry too much about that for now.
Now pick what fabrics you want for what spots and write that on each spot on EACH of the templates.
cut out the fabrics
(A1-4 is for the corner template- just match the pieces to the other template- the measurements are the same)
A1 (4) 5” square cut in half diagonally – so 2 squares = 4 pieces
A2 (8) 6” x 3 1/2”
A3 (4+4) 3 1/2” x 2”
A4 (4+4) 6” x 3 1/2”
use a flat ruler or something similar and score fold each line of the templates
Take a piece of A2 fabric and lay it right side DOWN lay paper template on top with lines visible from the front
Since this is such an odd shape I usually don’t trim this way, but it seemed the easiest. Fold back the right tip of the fabric by the A3 part of the template, lay A3 fabric behind right side UP (right sides of fabrics together)
have A3 peek out about 1/4”
Pin in place or carefully move to sewing machine
Have your stitch length SMALL, mine is 1.5 and the stitch in the middle
Stitch down the line between E1and E2 or whatever you letter template is, starting a bit before the line and going past the seam allowance line
The corner template is easier!
Lay the corner triangle right sides together on top of the large rectangle
Lay paper on top like before and have the fabrics peek past the folded line 1/4”
sew on that line like before
before ironing with the “side” templates, trim extra fabrics down to 1/4” using the yellow ruler or a regular ruler
Iron toward top fabric
flip template over the trim the next line down to 1/4”
then lay the next fabric on edge and flip back over and sew down the line again
If you’re doing all the templates at once, you’ll be “behind” one step on the corner templates, since those have 4 pieces of fabric and the side ones only had 3.
On these, since you sewed the corner triangle on first, it’s easier to trim the right side down to 1/4” and then add the small piece of fabric and sew, vs folding back the fabric like I showed first.
After all the pieces are sewn they should look like this!
(remember I’m doing two different ones)
Now with a regular ruler trim down the templates to a 1/4” from the thicker black line, it should match up with the grey printed line 
Remove papers and sew two pieces together with a normal seam allowance now, iron seams open!
(I’m just showing at the top what the front looks like and the seam ironed open on the bottom)
Keep sewing the block together!
EASY PEASY!
Now onto the house block
Print the house blocks and trim close to the grey seam allowance line
Tape the roof and sky parts together with tape
(If you’re only doing the roof FPP) then don’t worry about the other pieces.
Cut out fabrics for regular sewing
(If you are FPP the whole thing cut out pieces a bit bigger than I list, I’ll list the rotary cutting parts for everything except the roof!)
First mark your templates with WHAT fabrics you want to use – a reason why I printed out all of the templates so I could keep track of where the pieces go.
A1-3: 4 1/2” x 1 7/8”
A4: 4 1/2” x 3 1/8”
A5: 7 1/8” x 1 7/8”
-B templates are the roof so I’m being generous on the measurements-
Disregard the numbers on the template but do the main roof as #1
B1 (main roof) 9 1/2” x 3 1/2”
B2 (angle next to the roof) 5” x 2”
B3 (gable triangle) 5” x 5”
B4-5 (sky x 2) 4” x 2 1/2”
C1: 2 1/2” x 1 7/8”
C2 1 7/8” x 1 7/8”
C3 9 1/8” x 1 7/8”
C4 12 1/2” x 1 7/8”
D1,2 and E1,2: 1 7/8” x 1 7/8”
D3,4 and E3: 3 1/8” x 1 7/8”
F1,2 and G1 : 7 1/8” x 1 7/8”
As you know I like to sew as much together as I can before getting up to iron so I sewed the first parts of the roof together (just like the star block) and other parts of the house, like the window and the curtains, then F pieces and parts of the chimney and sky, and door and side piece.
Trim the roof fabrics before ironing
As always I like to lay out my pieces so I know what I’m doing is correct (even here I did a mistake and didn’t flip the roof piece over to show right side of fabric, then I’d know to flip the rest of the house pieces too to match.
you have to trim a few things as you go along, my side with the windows was about 1/4” too big so I trimmed a smidge off of each side, nobody will know right!? you can always fudge something like this 
Here I caught my mistake!
I actually had to rip out a few seams, but decided not to fix the chimney, it seemed fine on the right instead.
Here are the blocks all done!
Did you survive??
I’d love to see your blocks if/when you finish them. Link up or if the linky is closed, comment below with a link.
Do you want to do everything next month or have a month to also work on the border/ sashing? we’ve already cut them out so it shouldn’t be that hard. The last two blocks are applique and drunkard’s path which are not that hard either!
I think I will try to finish them next month
Let's finish it up. 🙂
these are great thanks I love this star
Let's finish it up : )