Outhouses Mini Quilt: Final Product

If you follow me on instagram, you would have seen a little mini quilt show up over the past year or so (or more). It was one of those projects that took SO MUCH focus, because it was my first paper piecing project, that I had to find that “extra” time where I was creatively energized - which as a creative entrepreneur who tends to OVER work, can be difficult.

Let’s talk about the pattern first! Carolyn Friedlander - Outhouses one of my all time favorite designers, she’s truly an artist not just a designer - you can tell in her color theory and design. I can immediately tell who is a great designer/artist not just quilter. This pattern came out years ago, but it was always something I was too afraid to attempt because of my lack of paper piecing knowledge! Turns out it’s not hard, just takes concentration for the small bits. I have one of her appliqué patterns to attempt this winter Botanica, a fitting choice for this botanical fanatic, (when I don’t want to be in the cold studio at the sewing machine, and want to do more of a handicraft, and of course her beautiful book - which now I feel like I need to make another few quilts from there (they are all gorgeous - be sure to buy yourself a copy of this book!)

Part one, picking out fabrics and making the houses, ok - so it was a solid HOUR per for my at the beginning of this quilt - mostly because I was out of practice. You can probably guess which ones I did first. Any sane creative quilter would redo those, but I find the wonky ones endearing. I decided to pull my base color palette from the gorgeous little liberty floral and pull from there for the rest. Turns out that was difficult with my strange collection of fabrics. I tend to buy randomly bold fabrics, for someone whose rug in this photo is one of the boldest pieces of interior decorating that I own, and it’s basically pastel lol. It took me a bit to find a few fat quarters at stores I wanted to use, but was worth waiting for the right combo.

Then it was time to baste and quilt! My most dreaded part of the process, just because when it comes down to it, I’ve had the least amount of instruction - even though my senior project in HS was freemotion quilting (insert nerd joke here - lol), I am still so unsure of myself. This actually was crazy fun because nothing needed to be a straight line!

The final result! I love it. Overall one of the things that I love most is that I see it each day when working on my studio projects. It reminds me that with a little bit of effort I can do things I think are too hard for my creative brain (like really detail oriented things like this).

Next time I’ll consider quilting down the borders? Maybe… but I think I’ll definitely make a single house little mini quilt for friends/family when they buy a home, maybe match general colors or their style. It would be a great little keepsake for quilty friends.

A look at the overgrown peperomia and current quilty projects…