S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night!!!

I suppose seeing/hearing this dates me....

My sister used to have a Bay City Rollers album! Those were the days!!!

Well, it is a S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night and many of you may be out doing something exciting on the town!!! My favorite Saturday nights these days are spent in my pajamas (or other comfy clothing), sewing/knitting/watching a movie/playing a game with the kids. I still go to bed fairly early on Saturday nights so that I can go to the gym on Sunday mornings (the gym doesn't open until 7:30 AM on the weekend... so late for me!!!

Well, on this Saturday night, amongst the many activities possible, I am blogging (a little tute for you)!!

Firstly, Mr. U found this badly bruised camera of mine on the side of a nearby road on his run yesterday...the memory card and batteries are gone..

and so are some of the parts...Mr. U was so wonderful to buy me a new camera!!!!

On this Saturday night, I am also sewing. The top to this doll quilt is done, so it is time for the quilting...and I have decided on the stitch-in-the-ditch in the house blocks but the white blocks were a little tricky to figure out....

My plan is to quilt houses in these blank blocks too. The dilemma for me was that the quilt is mainly white (I have only ever used pure white fabric once before... in my very first quilt) and I wasn't sure I wanted to mark the fabric, so I will show you how I decided to do these...

This is the reduced pattern that I used for paper piecing the house blocks...

I taped the pieces together to make the house...
and then, I traced the essential lines (that I quilted in the house blocks!) onto the opposite side (when you paper piece, the finished block is the reverse of the pattern)...

I, then, took out my handy-dandy roll of freezer paper (an essential tool for any quilter!)...
and I traced the lines onto the flat side (as opposed to the shiny side) of the freezer paper...
I also traced these lines for a separate template...

as well as some of the pieces (I guess I didn't photograph all of them but hope you get the idea)...

This is the full house template cut out. I also cut out the windows as they are quilted too!I, then, pressed the full template to the blank, white block and straight stitched around the edges and inside the three windows...

Here is the first areas stitched (I cut the threads off a little on the long side, about 3-4 inches long)...
When I finish that stitching, I peel off the freezer paper template carefully and set aside...

I like to weave in all my loose threads (by making a small knot in the thread and set into the middle layer) - I guess I am a little anal about these threads (but not about much else, I fear!)...

using an easy threading needle (I have mentioned their invaluable function in my quilting before)...

My second template has been cut into two pieces so I can quilt the channel up the center of the house...

Here is a (brilliantly out-of-focus) shot of the walking foot following the edge of the freezer paper template...

And after I have peeled off the freezer paper, woven in the loose threads, I will press on the three smaller pieced templates so that I can sew the line under the triangle and the channel between the roof and the two windows...

I will do the same with these little templates and the mounds of threads (on both sides of this wee quilt).

And voila....
a quilted house in the white, previously blank block!!!
And here are a couple of shots from the back of the quilt...with a glimpse of the three simple log cabins pieced on the quilt back...
And when I am not sewing on a Saturday night, I may be found knitting...
Hope you had a great S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night!!!