There's No Place Like Home

The theme for the row swap quilt that I got at last week's guild meeting was "There's No Place Like Home".  The idea is to do a building and things that remind you of home.  I really feel like this is the hardest one that I've worked on so far.  I went around and around in my head for a week before I even got started on it.  So far, there has been a lot of applique in the rows, but I'm not that great at applique.  Most of the rows were somewhat scenic, but I couldn't come up with a scene that I felt like I could do.  Finally I decided to ditch the scenic idea, and following more in line with the middle row pictured above, do individual blocks with a home theme.

I tried to think about the things that seemed special about home.  Finally I hit on the idea of thinking about what you miss most about home when you are away on a trip.  I thought about it for myself, and I asked my husband and kids about it.  The number one response was "sleeping in my own bed".  The next most common answer was, "a home cooked meal".  So I'm trying to translate those ideas into blocks.

So far I've made two 10 inch blocks. The one on the left is, of course, the house block.  The pattern for this block came from the "Home is Where the Heart Is" pattern in the Jan/Feb 2004 issue of Quiltmaker magazine.  The main fabric of the house front is the focus fabric for this quilt.  The other block is my adaptation of a block I found online at Le Borse di Gaya.  I did actually download the pattern on this one, but I had to adapt it, because the original block was for Halloween and had a pair of creepy eyes and a claw hand under the bed. . .not my idea of home.  The fabric for the bed frame is the other focus fabric she is using in the quilt - her border fabric.

I'm still not 100% sure what I'm going to do for my last 10 inch block.  I have a pattern for a slice of pie, but it is a 7 inch block.  I could blow it up to be 10 inches, or I could shrink it down to 5 inches and put a tea/coffee cup next to it.  I'm just not sure yet.  Once I get the last block done, I'm going to join the blocks together with 1.5 inch (finished) strips and add 1.5 inch (finished) strips to both sides to make the row 36 inches (finished).