September Block - Bee {a little bit} Japanese

September was Paula's month in this bee and she asked for wonky houses or other thinks to fit in a wonky town.

I had never made these before, and I was a little nervous about it. I love the look of wonky and improv blocks but the couple of times I had tried something similar it really didn't work out all that well, at least not in a way that I was happy with it. And after the less than finished block I sent back last month I was extra keen to do a good job.

I had seen this picture in Material Obsession but knew I didn't have the patience to even contemplate making a whole quilt.

But, in the last few days before the movers and packers came I needed to get it done and posted before I didn't have access to my machine and I needed a little bit of a creative time out.

So early one morning, and I mean early, I had another look at the great instructions Paula pointed us to, too a deep breath and cut and sewed...

I had had the idea I wanted to make a block that depicted the house I lived in until I was 12, a farmhouse that had been in my father's family for three generations. It had a distinctive green roof, paddocks to one side, a giant green yard and a huge orchard to the other side.

I came up with this

The green roof. It was the feature that was always described to anyone new coming to out house for the first time. The doors and windows in this house blend, because the door was hardly ever shut and absolutely never locked and the window was a giant one that overlooked a small garden. The little red strip is a small step that was in front of the door. There was a big orchard to the side of the house where the peas are now growing, this iscoincidently  the first seed type I ever remember planting in the veggie patch. The path between the big grass yard is littered with toys as my brother and sister and I often played there (you can see us through the doorway too). There was a small garden to the other side of the house from the orchard and a big paddock where out pet sheep lived. The sky at night had heaps of visible stars as there was no competing light to block them out....

I was much more inprovisational with this block, piecing together the scraps of the other block to make the second house.
I think it has turned out to be a very elaborate play house, with the dolls inside, some outside on the porch and a little flower garden in the front. It's also exceptionally ecofriendly, with a rooftop veggie garden.

All in all I enjoyed making these blocks - I don't know why I was worried!