Modern Monday: Beach House Construction

This month's traveling quilt came to me with lots of little houses on it.  Just look at these.  A tree house, no less.  A house in the forest with a little bird house beside.  A house in a fantasy garden. And a couple of modern houses.  You can't see the beautiful row houses in the upper right, reflecting off the lake in front of them.

Yes, it was a major challenge. It's a good thing that I'm not a competitive quilter.  Actually, I'm not a competitive anything.  

Anyway, the quilt came with an open spot for my house.  I've been keeping track of the quilts on our Pinterest board, so I'd also been thinking about what I wanted to do.  I decided to make my block with a beach house.  It had to be built on stilts and it had to have at least one palm tree.  

Some sand, a second palm tree, and some water in the background and I was set to go.  

I chose to use paper piecing for the house itself, but that was difficult because I didn't have a pattern.  I drew something out and then transferred it to EQ7, but even after that I somehow ended up turned around.  Are you aware that you're supposed to flip the image? I didn't realize that until the parts were built but didn't match up.  I finally figured out how to make it work, but it's not quite right. 

And things got worse than just not quite right.  The stilts were not part of the original house.  I decided to add those because, well, a beach house is on the beach.  Flooding, hurricanes, storms and tides are real problems that have to be dealt with in coastal regions.  And can anyone say "coastal erosion"?


I wanted this beach house to be able to withstand the ravages of time and water.  So I added big pilings, sure I built them after building the house, but I know that's not how it's really done: the pilings happen first, but in my studio the stylish parts are as important as the functional ones.

I just hope Glenda likes it. She is to be the happy owner of this adorably fun quilt.  I'm excited to see the finished product when we get together for a retreat some time this summer.

Happy Quilting,