The Village

In 2018 I was involved in two swap projects, one was 5" paper-pieced houses and one was 4.5" stars. I wrote about the Quilters Scrap Houses here and the Tiny Star Blocks here.

Recently, when I should have been sleeping, I wondered what I could do with thirty 4.5" tiny stars. And then wondered what I could do with thirty-six 5" little houses. Two  more quilts to make. Wait a minute...

What If: they were combined into ONE quilt, stars and houses. I ran the numbers in my head--what do you know? Ten 4.5" stars = 45" of stars, 3 rows of 10 stars each could be made.  AND nine 5" houses = 45" of houses, 4 rows of 9 houses could also be made. No extra blocks had to be made--I had just enough--that never happens!  It was meant to be, here is "THE VILLAGE":

A much better photo will be achieved when this is quilted and bound--in the not too distant future. I was just so eager to see it up on the wall. Good to have another top finished for 2019.

After I made the rows of stars and the rows of houses, I thought the neighborhood looked a little sterile--it needed some greenery. So each row of houses got one paper-pieced tree on either end of the "street"--much better. When I write the directions, the trees will be added to each "street" before the rows are sewn together, so much easier. If only I had thought about the trees earlier.

This will make a great 3 hour class for guilds--in 3 hours you can learn to paper-piece the house and one tree AND learn the adorable Tiny Star--and how to convert that simple star into other easy-to-make sizes. They are so good for swapping because the points "float" and don't have to match, always good in a swap project.

Let's quilt!

Barbara