farm girl friday - farmhouse

I'm so happy to be your cowboy tour guide for Farm Girl Friday, week 8! Or as I prefer to think of it, it's Farm Boy Friday!

We are using the Farm Girl Vintage book by Lori Holt for the sew along. And today we are building a farmhouse block!

The farmhouse is my favorite block in the Farm Girl Vintage book. I've always loved house blocks. They have that classic, vintage look, and they can be playful or sophisticated depending on your fabric selection. I've blended Ambleside by Brenda Riddle with Aloha Girl by Fig Tree & Co, both by Moda Fabrics.

First, turn to page 27, then cut and sew, preferably with country farm girl music. I was super happy when I finished the 6" block for my sampler quilt, and I didn't want the fun to end. So I made another block, this time 12" and using Mistletoe Lane by Bunny Hill.

Humm, I think it looks bare. How about if we add a topiary tree?

But why stop there? Let's make another farmhouse and another topiary!

I LOVE them! The two large houses are the beginning of the Farmhouse Lane quilt. The pattern is in the book on page 128. You'll need nine of the 12" houses, six trees and sixteen 6" blocks.  I think it will be the perfect Christmas quilt full of gingerbread houses, ice skates (never mind that I don't skate, even though I stalk the Rockefeller Center ice skating rink every Christmas) and little Christmas trees. But wouldn't it also be a spooky fun quilt in Halloween colors? Or summery with red, white and blue?

I really wanted to make a striped roof. It took me a few minutes to figure how to get the stripes all oriented in the same direction. So now let's talk about how to use stripes on your roof.

The roof is made in four sections. You will need two half square triangles (HSTs) for the left and right portions of the roof. Lori's pattern shows you how to use my very favorite method for making HSTs. But when you make your HSTs using the method shown, the result will be one HST with vertical stripes and one HST with horizontal stripes. You'll need to make a second set using the exact same method, and this will give you a second HST with vertical stripes. (You'll have two leftover HSTs with horizontal stripes, but I KNOW that you can find a creative use for them!)

Thanks for joining me today! I hope that you share your farmhouse blocks on Instagram. Be sure to use the hashtags #farmgirlvintage, #farmgirlfridays and #farmhouseblock when you post your blocks. And you can see all the fun projects that I'm working on, too. I'm @greydogwoodstudio.

Now hop on over to Lori Holt's blog to see her Farm Girl Vintage blocks, and check out the other guest bloggers, too. The full schedule is on the Jolly Jabber blog here.

Until next time, happy farming!