Fussy cutting houses: January and February

Hello everybody!

As I mentioned in my post here, I am joining in with Naomi Clarke's fussycuttingsewalong this year, but I can't keep up with a block per week. So instead, I am doing one super-sized block per month, picking from the choice of prompts available.  We are doing a shape known as 'houses', arranged in a cross shape. We can then choose whether to use squares or triangles as the outer corner shape. I am going with squares, so that I will have a selection of blocks that are easy to set into a quilt. My blocks are a 9 inch square finished. These are all done using the English Paper Piecing technique, which makes sewing around corners and 'y-seams' much simpler than traditional piecing.

I have done my January and February blocks.

January

As is now traditional with the #fussycuttingsewalong, the first month celebrates the Pantone colour of the year. This year, it is Classic Blue.

I chose to do central motifs in the house blocks. I love this dragonfly print, and I like the way the wings form a square shape. Creating squares is definitely goung to be a feature of fussy cutting this new shape. The fabric in the outer squares is a recent gift from my sister.

February

The February theme was 'All About Me' and I chose to interpret the prompt 'What I love'.
I found this one hard. I still haven't got the hang of looking at fabric for this shape and size, so several of the ideas I had involving striped fabrics didn't look right once I got my template over the fabric.
But then I rediscovered this house fabric which I love. It is one of my favourites in my stash. I also love quilty puns, so fussy cutting a house in a house shape seemed perfect for me.

I really struggled with what to put on the outside. I auditioned three different blues, none of which felt right.

So instead, I went for a complementary colour - the complement of greeny-blue is red-orange. Again I auditioned several possibilities before deciding on the one I liked best. Here are the rejected options.

So that's the first two blocks done! I am very unsure how I am going to put these together into a quilt. I have two ideas swirling around my brain - one is a little to boring for my liking and the other is ridiculously overcomplicated. I am hoping my brain will come up with a point somewhere in between by the end of the year. I am also considering making sure there is some blue in each block, so there is a colour tying them all together, but that will depend very much on what the prompts are, especially as I am hoping to avoid buying any new fabrics for these blocks.

So onto March! The theme for March is Animals, and I am really hoping to find something that works for 'butt week'. You have been warned.

Thanks for reading!