Sweet Home Quilt Along Finale Week 6

Sweet Home Quilt Along Finale Week 6

It’s been so much fun sewing along with everyone and seeing all the beautiful Log Cabins and Bungalows being constructed! This is our finale week for the Sweet Home Quilt Along hosted by myself, Maureen Cracknell, and Jennifer Jones. This Quilt Along’s taken a bit of the isolation out of staying home to be able to connect with the Sweet Home quilt makers on our Instagram community as well as on our blogs. Thank you to everyone who participated! The quilts being made are so adorable—see what I mean when you search the #SweetHomeQAL hashtag on Instagram and see all the amazing quilts in progress and finished quilts.

This may be the last official week of the quilt along but the blog posts and tutorials will remain up for anyone just starting their Sweet Home adventure. Before my big reveal of my Sweet Home quilt I thought I’d show a favorite photo from each week of my QAL posts. You’ll find links to those posts in the Highlight review if you need to read more, simply click on the aqua highlight “Week” title.

The quilt along ran six weeks total and covered a different aspect of piecing or finishing for each week. If you’re a novice quilter and want more instruction along the way—we have that too in the form of recorded Instagram tutorials over on my IGTV channel on Instagram. I’ve recorded step by step tutorials for you to access on my @sharonhollanddesigns IGTV channel on Instagram and the Sweet Home Quilt series covers fabric selection, Log Cabin block, and Bungalow block construction.

You can purchase the Sweet Home quilt pattern from my SHOP here.

A Look Back at the Highlights

Week 1

The first week was about selecting your fabrics for your quilt and cutting out the pieces for the quilt. You’ll find Instagram tutorials from myself and Jennifer Jones on how to substitute your fabrics in the pattern.

View my IGTV Sweet Home QAL series

View Jennifer’s IGTV story

My fabric pull for this quilt consisted of Art Gallery Fabrics Terra Kotta collection mixed with a couple Pure Solids and one print from my Spirited collection. This kit is available at Fat Quarter Shop if you’d like to sew a quilt like mine.

Week 2

Construction of the 10 Log Cabin blocks began and we learned about the many merits of chain piecing and how to control directional prints on Flying Geese units.

Week 3

Week 3 was devoted to making the Bungalow blocks and utilizing all the skills we’ve learned during the Log Cabin construction. There’s also tips and tutorials for using up those leftover half-square triangle from trimming the roofs.

Week 4

On week 4 we stitching up the Cornerstone Squares and adding sashing to your blocks to make a quilt top.

Week 5

Week 5 was a big blog post about sandwiching a quilt, spray basting, quilting, and binding. That post is loaded with tutorial links to earlier blog posts and tutorials on my blog. I finished my quilt with Chenille-It Blooming Bias (faux chenille) binding and you’ll find a video tutorial for that on the Week 5 post.

Week 6

Finale week is were all three hosts get to show off my six weeks of work and enjoying our fun Sweet Home quilts.

Here’s my finished quilt…

This sweet little stone spring house at a local park made the perfect backdrop for my quilt. We weren’t lucky enough to have a sunny day but the wind calmed down enough to get some shots.

Don’t forget to stop by Maureen Cracknell and Jennifer Jones blogs to see their big reveals and beautiful Sweet Home quilts.

This Friday will be the last Friday Giveaway for the Sweet Home Quilt Along and it will be our grande finale giveaway. Be following along on Instagram as all the giveaways will be held on that platform and winners will be randomly drawn the following Monday from the #SweetHomeQAL hashtag pool. The quilt along members that post their progress photos to public account on Instagram and use the hashtag #SweetHomeQAL will automatically be entered into every Sweet Home Quilt Along drawing! It’s that easy to enter, so enter often to up your chances!

And, while you’re on Instagram, take a look at the #SweetHomeQAL hashtag on Instagram and see what the other QAL Makers are using in their quilts—it’s an amazing resource not only to see fabrics but to make new friends!

I am an Amazon Associate site and earn from qualifying purchases on the products I’ve linked below. The helpful products selected are the same or similar to materials used to make the project(s) in this blog post or related items I think you may enjoy.

Sweet Home Quilt Along - Week 3

Sweet Home Quilt Along - Week 3

Welcome to the third week of the Sweet Home Quilt along hosted by (me) Sharon Holland, Maureen Cracknell, and Jennifer Jones. We’re halfway through the quilt along and excited to connect with the Sweet Home quilt makers on our Instagram community and here on our blogs!

I hope you’ve been following along on all three hosts blogs and Instagram accounts as we’re each making different versions of this quilt and let me tell you I’m loving ALL OF THEM!! See what I mean when you search the #SweetHomeQAL hashtag on Instagram.

If you’re just joining us you’ll probably want to pop over to the Sweet Home Quilt Along - Week 1 post to get caught up. Purchase the Sweet Home quilt pattern from my SHOP here.

If you’ve been following along since the start then you should already have your fabrics cut out and Log Cabin blocks assembled.

The quilt along will run six weeks total and we’ll cover a different aspect of piecing or finishing for that week. Some of you are working ahead and that’s wonderful—it’ll give you more time for the quilting and finishing portion. This quilt along is very relaxed. If you feel like completing the top in a week—go for it! But, if you’re a beginner and want more instruction along the way—we have that too in the form of LIVE and recorded Instagram tutorials over on my IGTV channel on Instagram. I just added a Bungalow Block tutorial on Monday of this week.

I’ve recorded step by step tutorials for you to access on my @sharonhollanddesigns IGTV channel on Instagram and so far the Sweet Home Quilt series covers fabric selection, Log Cabin block, and Bungalow block construction.

Today we talk about piecing the Bungalow blocks. I’m using Art Gallery Fabrics Terra Kotta prints mixed with AGF Pure Solids Sandstone for the background and one of my Spirited prints for half of the Log Cabin block roofs. The Sweet Home Terra Kotta kit can be purchased from Fat Quarter Shop.

Once you’ve made one Bungalow block all the way through and are comfortable with the construction you can utilize chain piecing to help speed up the repetitive sewing steps.

In the photo above, I’ve added all the long strips to one side of the window units without clipping the threads. Once the same sewing step has been applied to all the pieces needed for the Bungalow blocks I remove the chained pieces, snip the connecting threads and add the long strip to the opposite side before moving on to the next step.

When constructing the roofs for both the Log Cabin and Bungalow blocks there’s usable trimmings from the Flippy Corner construction. I’ve been saving all my trimming and am planning to make something scrappy from them in the near future.

If you’re looking for some ideas of what to do with those leftover half-square triangles (HST) units, take a look at an oldie but goodie blog post were I show examples of what to do with leftover HSTs to create new quilt blocks.

If you don’t want to commit to making another quilt from leftover HST scraps then why not think smaller and make a pillow? I had a similar stack of half-square triangle (HST) trimmings when Maureen and I hosted the AGF Heart Quilt sew along earlier this year. If you’d like some inspiration for a pillow project, read about my pretty pillow that also uses Chenille-It Blooming Bias for an added bit of fun!

Just like the Log Cabin construction, you’ll find the Bungalow block uses much the same piecing techniques. The window sections are assembled in a Log-Cabin fashion and the base of the Bungalow comes together quickly—especially if you’re chain piecing. The roof is constructed exactly like the Log Cabin roof only minus the chimney.

If you’re working with a directional print for your roof like I am then you’ll want to either watch my Instagram IGTV video for this block construction or read about Controlling Directional Prints in Patchwork Units on my tutorial post.

Next week we’ll be making the corner squares and attaching sashing to blocks.

I’m enjoying seeing your postings to Instagram and following along on your progress—you’re all are doing amazing and beautiful work on your Sweet Home quilts!

Don’t forget that this Friday will be a new Friday Giveaway with fabulous prizes from our sponsors. Be following along on Instagram as all the giveaways will be held on that platform and winners will be randomly drawn the following Monday from the #SweetHomeQAL hashtag pool. The quilt along members that post their progress photos to public account on Instagram and use the hashtag #SweetHomeQAL will automatically be entered into every Sweet Home Quilt Along drawing! It’s that easy to enter, so enter often to up your chances!

And, while you’re on Instagram, take a look at the #SweetHomeQAL hashtag on Instagram and see what the other QAL Makers are using in their quilts—it’s an amazing resource not only to see fabrics but to make new friends!

I am an Amazon Associate site and earn from qualifying purchases on the products I’ve linked below. The helpful products selected are the same or similar to materials used to make the project(s) in this blog post or related items I think you may enjoy.

Sweet Home Quilt Along - Week 2

Sweet Home Quilt Along - Week 2

Welcome to the second week of the Sweet Home Quilt along hosted by (me) Sharon Holland, Maureen Cracknell, and Jennifer Jones. We’re excited to be working together as hosts to bring you this quilt along and to have this chance to connect with the Sweet Home quilt makers on our Instagram community!

I hope you’ve been following along on all three hosts blogs and Instagram accounts as we’re each making different versions of this quilt and let me tell you I’m loving ALL OF THEM!! See what Maureen Cracknell and Jennifer Jones are stitching up.

If you’re just joining us you’ll probably want to pop over to the Sweet Home Quilt Along - Week 1 post to get caught up. Purchase the Sweet Home quilt pattern from my SHOP here.

If you’ve been following along since the start then you should already have your fabrics cut out and are now ready to begin piecing the Log Cabin blocks.

The quilt along will run six weeks and we’ll cover a different aspect of piecing or finishing for that week. Some of you are working ahead and that’s wonderful—it’ll give you more time for the quilting and finishing portion. This quilt along is very relaxed. If you feel like completing the top in a week, go for it! But, if you’re a beginner and want more instruction along the way—we have that too in the form of LIVE and recorded Instagram tutorials over on my IGTV channel on Instagram.

Today we talk about piecing the Log Cabin blocks. I’m using Art Gallery Fabrics Terra Kotta prints mixed with AGF Pure Solids Sandstone for the background and one of my Spirited prints for half of the Log Cabin block roofs. If you’ve purchased this kit from Fat Quarter shop and did NOT get a Pattern Supplement sheet like the one below, contact me via email or on Instagram and let me know—I’ll send you the sheet.

Sweet Home Terra Kotta kit from Fat Quarter Shop

I’ve recorded step by step tutorials for you to access on my @sharonhollanddesigns IGTV channel on Instagram and so far the Sweet Home Quilt series covers fabric selection and Log Cabin block construction.

Since all the tutorial stuff is covered on Instagram, this post is going to be more of a chance to show off pretty photos of my newly made blocks—I literally got them done and photographed just before writing this block post!

I love making Log Cabin Blocks and going round and round the center piece. I suggest making one block through from start to finish to become comfortable with the instructions and then once you have it figured out you can utilize chain piecing or chain stitching to save time on those repetitive sewing steps.

Please note that although some of your Sweet Home house pieces have been cut directionally (like the chimneys, the windows, and portions of the Bungalow base) the rest of your pieces have been cut to best maximize the material and reduce how much material you needed to use. So, that also means that the long sides of your Log Cabin blocks will have the print running side to side and the short piece will have the print running up and down.

You can however control your print direction on squares and the flippy corners on the rooflines/background. Read further down for more information on roof/background direction control.

Chain stitching photo courtesy of Jennifer Jones

In my tutorials I’ve broken down the Log Cabin block into Log Cabin base construction and roof construction. The tutorials stress chain piecing as a time saving technique and once you get into the swing of how a block is constructed it’ll be fun and relaxing way to construct your blocks.

When you get into chain piecing assembly-line mode, make all the bases first according to the pattern, kit, or your coloring sheet guide then move onto assembly-line piecing the roof tops.

If you’re going by the PDF pattern and using two different prints for the Log Cabin roofs the construction for these are the same no matter what fabrics you use. Just be sure to flip out the first corner before adding on the other side. Here I started with the chimney side before adding the simple square side but the results are the same, even if you reversed the order.

I’ve got a tutorial that was created for the Sewcial Bee Sampler that will be very helpful for these flippy corners if you’re looking to control the direction of a print. The tutorial talks a lot about half-square triangle (HST) construction but the principle of auditioning the fabric is the same that I’d use for auditioning a directional print on a flippy corner. I also show and cover this in my Instagram IGTV channel in the Log Cabin part 5 video.

I feel that one of the most important things you can do to improve your patchwork is to press every step of the way. Working with flat fabric keeps your seams crisp and block true to size. This Oliso mini iron is perfect to set up beside your work station for quick pressing.

All ten Log Cabin blocks are stitched and pressed. I’m really loving this Terra Kotta palette and am excited to see how it all looks up on my design wall—I’ve not even had a chance to lay them all out yet!

The three of us hosts have each done some styled flat lay photos of a block with flowers, evergreens, and props all inspired by Nuria Elkins Sweet Home Block picture as seen in this spring. These photos had to be the most fun all images to take—be sure to check what the other hosts photographed!

Next week we’ll be making Bungalow Blocks and I’ll have some new LIVE video to add to my IGTV channel. If you’re on Instagram when I go live, be sure to stop by and say hi!

Don’t forget that this Friday will be a new Friday Giveaway with fabulous prizes from our sponsors. Be following along on Instagram as all the giveaways will be held on that platform and winners will be randomly drawn the following Monday from the #SweetHomeQAL hashtag pool. The quilt along members that post their progress photos to public account on Instagram and use the hashtag #SweetHomeQAL will automatically be entered into every Sweet Home Quilt Along drawing! It’s that easy to enter, so enter often to up your chances!

And, while you’re on Instagram, take a look at the #SweetHomeQAL hashtag on Instagram and see what the other QAL Makers are using in their quilts—it’s an amazing resource not only to see fabrics but to make new friends!

I am an Amazon Associate site and earn from qualifying purchases on the products I’ve linked below. The helpful products selected are the same or similar to materials used to make the project(s) in this blog post or related items I think you may enjoy.

Sweet Home Quilt Along - Week 1

Sweet Home Quilt Along - Week 1

Welcome to the first week of the Sweet Home Quilt along hosted by (me) Sharon Holland, Maureen Cracknell, and Jennifer Jones. Not only are we excited to be working together to bring you this quilt along, but we’re so happy that you’ll be sewing along with us and have this chance to connect!

Many of you have joined Maureen and I for past sew alongs and you’ve already an idea of our hosting style and what to expect during the next six weeks. For those of you that have never sewn along with us I’ll let you know what to expect so you can pace your sewing with us.

Our events are very casual. No sign up, but we encourage you to follow all the hosts because each host will bring their unique perspective to the sewing table and we’re all working with different Art Gallery Fabrics and collections so each of our quilts will looks completely different. Be sure to check out their blog post each week as well as follow along on Instagram!

Each quilt along week will begin with a Wednesday blog post (on each hosts’ site). See the schedule above to know what to expect each week and how we’ve broken this quilt down into manageable goals. By the end of six weeks you’ll have your top done and hopefully quilted, too!

The Friday right after the Wednesday blog post there’ll be a corresponding sponsored giveaway! We’ve coordinated with six fabulous sponsors who’ve donated prizes you’ll love to add to your stash, notions, materials, and equipment in your sewing room.

Be following along on Instagram as all the giveaways will be held on that platform and winners will be randomly drawn on Monday from the #SweetHomeQAL hashtag pool. The quilt along members that post their progress photos to public account on Instagram and use the hashtag #SweetHomeQAL will automatically be entered into every Sweet Home Quilt Along drawing! It’s that easy to enter, so enter often to up your chances!

If you haven’t already purchased the Sweet Home quilt pattern you’ll need to get it from my SHOP in the form of a PDF download or you can purchase it from Fat Quarter Shop as a PDF as well. Once you have your pattern it’s time to pick out your fabrics!

Week 1 - Fabric Selection

Sweet Home Terra Kotta kit

Selecting your fabrics can be a simple as digging through your stash and pulling out your favorite prints! You may already have an idea in mind for what you’d like your little neighborhood of houses to look like or have a special recipient in minds and are using their favorite colors.

When I first published this quilt pattern in May I made two quilts, one for my granddaughter and another for her baby brother. They share a room so it was fun to make quilts that fit their unique personalities but still worked together in the same space.

I finished each quilt with 5/8’’-wide Chenille-It Blooming Bias for the cherry on top of an already adorable quilt. You’ll find instructions for adding faux chenille binding to your quilt in the pattern as well as a video tutorial on my Tutorial page. But, we’ll get more into adding binding on Week 5 for finishing your quilt. Just something to think about if you want to order your materials early. You can also finish your quilt with traditional binding—it’s nice to have options!

Read more about the first quilt on the original quilt release post and about the second quilt HERE as well as take a look at a beautiful quilt kit made by Fabric Stork (sorry, this kit is sold out but can give you fabric selection ideas). Also, check out the fantastic Halloween quilt pieced by Fabric Stork for the AGF Sweet and Spooky Look Book.

All these quilts show you finished Sweet Home quilt examples made with beautiful Art Gallery Fabrics. I hope this little Sweet Home quilt show has helped to inspire and get your fabric selecting ideas flowing.

For the quilt along, I’ll be making a third Sweet Home quilt using Art Gallery Fabrics new Terra Kotta collection mixed with a couple Pure Solids and one print from my Spirited collection. This kit is available at Fat Quarter Shop if you’d like to sew a quilt like mine.

For additional kits with Art Gallery Fabrics, check out my August 31st blog post announcing this quilt along. We’ve teamed up with Lady Belle Fabric, Lamb and Loom, and Piper Autumn Designs to bring you Sweet Home quilt kits, making your fabric selection and buying easy. These shops have a limited number of kits still available—so grab yours now before they’re gone!

I love a pretty pile of quilt pieces, don’t you?

I’ve got all my pieces cut out for my Terra Kotta Sweet Home kit and next week we’ll dive into making the Log Cabin houses. This week you should be gathering your fabrics and getting all your pieces cut out. Remember to take lots of fabric pull photos and styled shots like this so you can post your progress to Instagram along with the #SweetHomeQAL hashtag and get your name in the pool for Friday’s drawing!

Sweet Home Cozy and Joyful kit from Lady Belle Fabric

If you’re still looking for more fabric inspirations, check out Maureen’s blog —she’s going to be working on four quilts—yes, four quilts! She’s got a lovely post prepared with tips on how to streamline your cutting when there’s a lot of pieces (or multiple quilts). Pictured is the Cozy and Joyful kit from Lady Belle Fabric. Lady Belle also has a Sweet Home Halloween version!

Sweet Home Starry Night kit from Lamb and Loom

Don’t forget to also visit Jennifer Jones over at Penelope Handmade. Jennifer is piecing the Starry Night kit from Lamb and Loom but this is her second Sweet Home quilt because she had stitched the Sweet Home Prairie Companion kit from Pipe Autumn Designs earlier this spring and fell in love with this quilt at first stitch.

And, if you’re still looking for inspiration, take a look at the #SweetHomeQAL hashtag on Instagram and see what the other QAL Makers are using in their quilts—it’s an amazing resource not only to see fabrics but to make new friends!

Meet you back here on Friday as we announce this weeks giveaway prize.

I am an Amazon Associate site and earn from qualifying purchases on the products I’ve linked below. The helpful products selected are the same or similar to materials used to make the project(s) in this blog post or related items I think you may enjoy.