Cherry Home, a Crooked Fence, and a Lesson in Trusting My Gut..
Hi quilty friends!
I’m finally deep into Lori Holt’s Hometown Applique quilt, and I have two blocks done! If you’ve been following along, you know I’ve just started this project a few weeks back and I am happy to say, I have cut all the little pieces, but I’m fusing them with HeatBond and finishing everything off with a machine blanket stitch a few blocks at a time.
And of course… it wouldn’t be a proper lesson without a mistake or two along the way. 😅
Getting Started: Cutting and Prepping
>As I mentioned in my previous post HERE>, my plan was to cut all the pieces ready to go for the next step. I have organized all my pieces on the portable design boards. I say this all the time, but I really love these design boards, and you can easily make them yourself. I take about them HERE>
I need to make some time to make MORE of the design board cause they’re so useful and can save lots of space too.
After I’m done with all the pieces, I decided to put my second block together. This is when I take the pieces I cut for the block (in this case the Cherry House) and I bring it to the ironing board to fuse on the HeatBond Lite Appliqué Paper on the back and draw the appliqué shapes.
I figured working to complete only two blocks at once, getting all the pieces cut and fused so I could hop between them on the machine. My thinking was simple: applique by colour. That way I only have to change thread once per colour, instead of constantly swapping back and forth between blocks. Working on two-at-a-time rather all at the same time, to keep me motivated by having a complete block in a shorter round.
It felt like such a smart system… right up until it wasn’t. More on that below!
The Cherry Home Block (and That Sneaky Roof)
This is where things got interesting. As I started arranging the pieces for the Cherry Home block, something felt off. Looking at the picture, the house looked taller than it was wide — and honestly, that made sense to me, because we still needed to leave room for the fence on the right side.
But then I started laying out the roof piece, and it looked too wide for that orientation. So I second-guessed myself. I rotated the whole layout, and suddenly the roof seemed to fit so much better.
“hmmm…that fits so much better. so it must be right.”
Ignoring the Warning Signs
Once I had the bias tape pieces in for the fence, I noticed the fence pieces were sitting really close to the edge of the block. The kind of close where you just know it’s going to get trimmed off later.
I noticed it. I really did. Just look at the photo above where you can clearly see that it was filling up a little too much on the left edge as compared to my bee house. But then… I just kept going. 🙃 I think I was just so excited to finally get to the fun part — the actual machine applique — that I let that nagging feeling slide.
Machine Applique Time!
This is genuinely my favourite part. Switching between the two prepped blocks, stitching down piece by piece, colour by colour — there’s something so satisfying about watching the block come together with that little blanket stitch detail. I keep stroking those tiny little stitches…It just adds a little more detail to the quilt.
I am using the setting of a small blanket stitch I have on this machine: Janome Horizon QCP8200 (so many choices, but so underused. I love them all and I love this machine so much!!). I set the machine to be 1.5 in stitch length and width.
I appliqued down a few units… and then that nagging feeling came back. I grabbed my ruler and actually measured the block against where the fence was sitting.
Yeah. It wasn’t going to make it.
The Detective Work
At this point I had to go back and visit Lori’s blog to double check the pattern. It turns out Lori made the exact same mistake for this Cherry House! The roof needs to be cut with one less scallop than what I had, which is exactly why mine was sitting too wide and pushing the fence out toward the edge.
No wonder it didn’t fit. The math just wasn’t there from the start — not because of my rotation, but because of that one little scallop.
The Fix (Or: Embracing the Quirk)
So now I had a choice: rip out my tiny, painstaking blanket stitching and start over, or make it work.
I chose to make it work. 😄
I peeled back the fence pieces I’d already fused down, rearranged them, and gave myself a slightly thinner fence than the pattern intended. Is it “perfect”? No. But it fits, it looks great, and honestly? It’s my quirk now. My quilt, my little story stitched right into the block.
On Following Your Gut
Here’s the thing I keep coming back to: I noticed the fence sitting too close to the edge before I appliqued anything down. I had the information. The sign was right there.
But I think there’s something about quilting — and honestly, about a lot of things in life — where sometimes we need to actually make the mistake to really understand it. Knowing isn’t always the same as believing. I could see the fence was off, but I didn’t fully trust what I was seeing until I’d measured it, confirmed it, and lived through the consequences a little.
I don’t think that means I should beat myself up over it (working on that, always 😅). I think it just means that sometimes our gut whispers first, and we need a bit more evidence — or a bit more excitement to power through, ha — before we actually listen.
Next time, maybe I’ll measure first. Or maybe I won’t, and I’ll have another “quirk of my own quilt” story to tell. Either way, the block is done, it’s charming, and it’s mine.
Two blocks down — onward to the rest of Hometown! 🏡
Tools & Supplies I’m Using
All of these are affiliate links and I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only share tools I genuinely use and love!
- Home Town Fabrics
- Sew Simple Shapes: Home Town (63 Templates)
- Quilty Clippies
- HeatBond Lite Appliqué Paper
- Portable Design Board that I made myself
- My rotary cutter
- My 2.5″ quilting ruler
- My Sewing Machine: Janome Horizon QCP8200
- Oliso Iron Pro
- Oliso Iron Mini
- This giant Wool Mat
- Aurifil Threads
Currently Available Lori Holt Quilt Kits
Well since this kit is already out of stock, you can check out other Lori’s Quilt Kit HERE> and I recommend getting from FQS as they provide plenty of fabrics and there’ll be room for a mistake here or there.
Until next time — happy sewing, friends! 🧵
Amira
