House quilt block

This simple five inch block is an ideal scrap buster. You could make a whole street of houses for a table runner, or a neighbourhood for a bag or quilt. The finished block is 5 inches square, so if you join it to other blocks it will end up at 4.5 inches.

You need 4 different colour fabrics, one for the sky, one for the roof, one for the door and one for the house. The cutting instructions are below:

One 5 x 2.5 inch rectangle from roof fabric

Two 2.5 squares from sky fabric

One 5 inch by 2 inch rectangle of house fabric

Two 2 inch squares of house fabric

One 2 inch square of door fabric

In this tutorial I have used fabrics designed by me and printed by Prinfab on their cotton poplin fabric. Prinfab is a British fabric printing company which offers 18 different types of fabric for you to print your designs on.

All seams are a quarter of an inch.

Step 1

Take your two roof squares and draw a diagonal line across each square. Place the first square on top of one side of the rectangle right sides together. Make sure the diagonal line starts in the outer bottom corner. Sew across the diagonal line that you drew. Trim away the excess leaving a quarter inch seam. Fold back the sky fabric pressing the seam towards the darker fabric so you have a triangle of sky fabric.

Repeat with the other square of fabric so you have a flying goose unit as seen below (more about flying geese blocks here).

Step 2

Line up your 2 squares of house fabric and your door fabric, with the door in the middle. Sew a square of house fabric to either side of the door fabric, press seams towards the darker fabric.

Step 3

Place your rectangle of house fabric on top of the door unit you have just sewn. Sew across the top seam, then press.

Add your flying goose roof unit by laying it on top of the rectangle of house fabric and sewing the quarter inch seam.  Press the whole block.

You have now made your first house. Keep sewing and make a beautiful scrap quilt full of cute houses, or make a few more to make a cushion, bag or table runner. Alternatively add a smaller border around the outside and you could make it into a cup mat. 

For other quilt block tutorials see our quilt block directory.