Cutting Fabric for Small Houses

[Nancy Lee.]

I am late to the party so I have only completed the 8 Small House 1 units so far. I realize this post is too late for everyone that started in January but I thought I would post it in case it would help quilters who start the pattern late like I did.

Before I started cutting I decided to try to minimize the number of different sizes of pieces to cut. I came up with a plan to decrease the number of sizes to cut by half without wasting a lot of fabric.

The Pattern Directions for all the Small Houses combined call for these cuts:

Pattern Direction Cuts	Total to Cut
1.25 x 1.25	16
1.5 x 1.5	16
1 x 2	48
1.25 x 2	64
2 x 2	8
1.25 x 3	32
1.5 x 3	56
1.25 x 3.5	48
1.5 x 3.5	32
3.5 x 3.5	24
3.5 x 4	8

With my method you would cut your fabric with these sizes:

My Shortcut Sizes	Total to Cut
2 x 1.75	144
1.5 x 3.5	168
3.5 x 3.5	24
2 x 2	8
4 x 3.5	8

I have attached a file to a later post with more details for each house. I am using 30-32 different fabrics so I cut a 3.5" x WOF strip from each fabric and then cut out the pieces as follows:
5 each 2 x 1.75
5 each 1.5 x 3.5
1 each 3.5 x 3.5
In addition, I cut 8 different 2 x 2 pieces and 8 different 4 x 3.5 pieces for the Small House 4 window and roof.

With this method I have been able to mix and match pieces for all the Small Houses with a few pieces left over which I hope to use later in the buildings. It has been fun to have all the cuts done and then play with the fabric combinations before starting to sew.

~Nancy