From the Vault - House Quilt (Winter Blocks)

Ten years ago I made a quilt that started out with a variety of house blocks.  They were addictive and I kept making more and more of them.  When I finally settled down and was ready to assemble them into a quilt, I noticed that they lent themselves to seasons, and that's how I arranged them.  Today we're going to look at the winter blocks.

They all have a "snow" border on the top and a brick walkway (freshly shoveled) on the bottom.  

A gardener lives in this house and she's forced some tulips to bloom in her sunny front window.  Warm colors of the house and roof help keep the cold at bay.  A button makes an oversize door knob. 

Notice how she has a pine tree close to her house for some winter interest and a roosting spot for the birds. 
The background behind the house and tree evokes the bare branches of deciduous trees.

 

This is the next house down the street.  It's late at night and the only light is a single lamp (done with free motion stitching) in the window.  A button snowman sits in the front yard, wondering where everyone went.

There are eighteen houses in this quilt, and this was one of the last ones I made.  I was running out of ideas for house silhouettes, so I started paying close attention on my walks.  This one is based on a real house, contemporary design, with a beautiful brick chimney all the way up the outside.

It's a clear, cold night and lots of stars are out.  The jelly-looking stars are buttons.  The block is quilted with free-motion stars connected with loops.

  

This is the best-smelling house on the block.  You can see gingerbread cookies (buttons) cooling through the front windows.  The quilting is steaming cups of tea.

This is the last house on the block.  The cat isn't outside - we don't want it running around killing birds.  It's in a special cupola the owners built for it, so it can have a 360-degree view of the great outdoors.

Right now, the most interesting thing to look at is the lamp post along a walking trail.  The background of the lamp block is a shimmery fabric.  The light coming from under the lamp (it fans out in an inverted V) is a sheer fabric with sparkly gold bits on it.

Large purple buttons make a series of porthole windows.

Here's the winter row.  This is the top row of the quilt so you can see a bit of the border fabric.  The house and tree blocks are 11" tall.  With the snow and brick borders, it comes to 15.5".

Only three more months and then I'll show you the spring row.