If you have ever made School House blocks you KNOW how difficult it is to make chimneys that line up perfectly to the roof line and you KNOW how difficult it is to get the roof line to match up with the bottom of the house! I wanted perfect houses…dead on, seams matching, no oops!
The pattern called for templates…so I made them out of heavy duty sand paper…tested them…PERFECT!
The sand paper backing gripped the fabric with no slipping! If you need to make templates than use the sand paper method…they work great! Way better than slippery plastic!
Using the templates I cut out a ‘test’ house…
UGH!! See how the chimney on the right doesn’t match…nor does the roof!! I could rip out and re-stitch this but this is my trial test run…I checked the templates and they were dead on…I measured my 1/4” seams and they were dead on…but no match! BLAH!
So I turned the pattern into a paper pieced pattern…and made another test house…
Dead on! The chimney matched…the roof matched the bottom half of the house…
I have twenty five more houses to make and I don’t want to fuss with matching roof lines! Paper piecing it is! So after tiddling up the ‘pattern’ it was back to Staples to reverse it and make 30+ copies!
The top house is the paper pieced house and the bottom is the template house. Both are test houses…and may find their way into pillows…or maybe even a quilt! Who knows…
As for now, I have some Schoolhouses to build…lots of schoolhouses…with (hopefully) perfect roof lines…OK make that ‘near perfect’ roof lines!
Have a magical Monday and Happy Stitching!~P
Way to go...
ReplyDeleteBetter you than me!
ReplyDeleteI've never had much luck with templates--remember the winter solstice quilt??
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting, Paulette, thank you! You know I paper pieced my little houses, but I've been thinking of using templates for a larger version. I may re-think that!
ReplyDeleteI am learning so much reading your blog! I have so much to learn. I have never learned paper piecing. It is another "to learn" on my list of many.
ReplyDeleteLove your tutorial. Never thought of sandpaper. I do like the way we did the houses with the paper piecing. You do have lots of schools to build! ;-) You go girl
ReplyDeleteI never thought of using sandpaper for templates. What a great idea! Love your house blocks. This is going to be a beautiful, timeless quilt. The couple that will receive it is very lucky indeed!
ReplyDelete