Improv houses, help me see?
 

I'm making little 3" improv houses out of my Kaffe scraps, so Cute :) but they are busy and with my bent vision I'd like some suggestions about layout, because when I walk across the room to judge they pile up or disappear entirely or move into waves. do any of these layout do anything for anyone. I have very little yardage if it needs a background, what you see is basically my options.

And Rob knows I'm distressed about world events and this showed up in my happy space this morning :) Life is good. In my Kintsugi mug

Love the one on the dark background!! The houses really pop!

They are cute. I like the light background.l

Maybe alternate each house with a solid color fabric - like a checkerboard -or a comparatively wide sashing between them

Houses are really cute - but the details get lost when they are next to each other

Thank you, I've added some kaffecrazy trees :)
I've looked at so many images over the years
https://www.google.com/search?sca_es...ih=440&dpr=1.7
and I like them all ways, but I'm not a fan of sashing so if I use some it would be cut at 1". Back to play.

I'm just quilting my Temprature quilt this week, these would be so cute for one of those

That is a beautiful mug!! Sharing your distress, sending a bigggg hug to a fellow quilter : )

As for the busy....yes the blocks end up super busy. I would suggest a very "solid or reads as solid" sashing to calm things down. For my money even the dark background you have up is too busy and adds more visual confusion.

You could also consider alternating the house blocks with blocks that a complementary ie. what our guild did was a block lotto where you make one house block and one tree block. Putting them together breaks up the repetition and busy-ness in a pleasant way.

Your alternate blocks could also be a simple traditional block in reads as solids...ie a simple nine patch, wonky star. Nothing too complex.

I think I have a suitcase full of leader ender 3" 9 patches but they are really scrappy too. I'll look at them tomorrow
this is how I last left it with a few trees added and 3 layout options.

I also have a little box full of kaffe 1.5" squares, good to the last drop ya know... I could set those in dark strips. Not too sure how much black I have, I used most of it in my dementia III quilt

how about putting trees in between like one i did
cute houses

An observation (that doesn’t answer the question at all, I’m sorry): I think choosing one best background is hard because the house tops aren’t consistent in where the light/dark values are. Sometimes the housetop is dark with light sky, and sometimes the housetop is light with a dark sky.

By contrast, it looks like the house bottoms are consistently dark house on light background. For me, this leads to some visual confusion on reading the houses against the background.

My mind keeps seeing them on a hill or ledge. If you think about them like that, I think it would become a little easier to set them. A design wall would help. Maybe a seashore off to the side? With little boats? It just looks so tropical in my mind's eye.

Of the backgrounds you have shown, I like the dark one the best. It looks like a nighttime sky and shows off the little houses. The light backgrounds compete with the houses and it all sort of blends together. I like the suggestion of the trees between them, too.

I love what you're doing with Kaffe fabrics! I have tons and am sometimes stumped as to what to make but I do love his fabrics.

I whipped up a bunch of idea spacers yesterday at quilt group, I'll offer them up for suggestions in a little bit.
The 9 patches from the leaders and enders was total fail, so different it was like what would happen is you sewed a banana to an orange :) black and white ones would probably work though were I inclined to make them.

thank you for helping me see.

Maybe set the houses in rows - with fabric representing roads or beaches or mountains between the rows.

It will be sort of a flat grandma Moses type of presentation.

Or could have backgrounds representing different times of day.

The separating would be horizontal.

Or make a housing development o one t with the blocks.

I'm not sure how big the blocks are, but you could make them into bird houses by adding an appliqued hole. Then maybe add bird blocks in between. You could put some on poles to shake it up a bit and elongate the blocks. Just a thought...my mind sees things weirdly sometimes.

the blocks are 3" finished.
today's experiments.
thinking if I keep the trees change the background to match the spacer blocks.
Any houses going forward should have neutral to light blue sky.

my original thought was just houses in rows. I'm thinking I'm losing sight of simple which was my first intent :)
haven't tried offset yet,

I like the one with white background a lot! And I see you have some of the same Kaffe fabrics I have.

I think we all do Dunster, some of his are timeless that mix in with some of his new ones.
My Kaffe scraps came from doing an Escher quilt from Quiltageous kit in 2020.

I've got a new layout today, I decided the trees didn't add anything so have moved them to a border, and I ripped the dark roofs off last night and will use them as some kind of border. I didn't mean this to become a thoughtful quilt :) I just wanted to make houses, but apparently it is destined to be one of my 40x40"ish quilts for the loft rail.

photos to follow, I'm booking our fall travel months RV reservations now. Last year we traveled for Rob so this year we are hitting the International Quilt museum in Lincoln, Missouri Star (only took me 4 hours to go through 6 years ago, but now they have a little RV park and maybe I'll get a chance to talk to sister sewers.) and Shipshawana for a week. Life is good if we allow it...

ok, this is were I am at quitin' timetoday, that border is either trees with wide stumps or tall houses :) I thought I had a corner beam ruler for the corners but maybe I sold it. Maybe I can wing it..

I like your white background best. I think either of your border ideas would work. My pick would be the pyramid triangles or the tree one without the stumps in between or maybe the diamond blocks instead.

saturday revamps. And I do appreciate everyone's input. If you know what an amsler grid is, this is what mine looks like. So imagine 4 or 5 spots like this altering my layout if I get more that a few feet from it. Not all layouts need this but since this is a scrap pile my eyes don't know what to make of what it's seeing ;)

I am sorry but I think your border idea is swallowing up your houses..

Know I k ow about a. Amsler grid.

you got it Sharon :) Makes my crazy brain even craizer because I can't trust what I'm seeing. I almost hit buy it now on ebay this morning because something I've had on my search list said 7.00. I turned my head turned back and it was 37.00. yipes.

Garnet, I think you've hit it on the head! I wanted to make improve houses, I should be making improv houses! I've taken all the early dark skyed ones apart and put in the parts department for now, I'll put the tall trees there too. although now that I have accuquilt they are easy to make. another time another project.

Maybe a plainer border? The big triangles seem to overpower the rooftops of the houses.

Maybe rows of houses - a street, field, beach, river - between the rows . Rows of trees along the road.

or pack everything up in a box and think about it later.

I really hate typing on my phone.

I have some new settings ideas, but honestly I'm really overthinking this! as Bear says, I think I'll put them in time out for a bit.
Time perhaps to get out the millions of Colorwash blocks I have while the working wall is empty :) Thank you all for your suggestions!

ok, when adding them to the kaffe bits box, I wondered if these other time-outs would work.
I may be onto something? Those border blocks were in the same box eariler, they are the cut off corners from these blocks you haven't seen yet.
Corners are questionable, but I like the one where the 4 matches make an X rather than 4 on a row. Those crazy blocks seem to calm it down somehow :)

I like it.

Interesting how that worked.

It makes me think of suburbs: little rows of houses with the roads running between them.

ok, quiting time for today, but I'm a happy camper in my little houses. first 3 strips done. Gee seams shrink up things!

To make it come out no bigger than 40" and accomodate an even amount of X's and O's I had to drop the border blocks.
Back in the Kaffe timeout box for them.
Had to reduce the X O blocks to 3.5" to work out with the houses. Didn't want to do that but things change when even numbers of blocks are needed.
But you've now see the way I design quilts, On the working wall, added and subtracting until I can SEE defination and it looks right :)
Next image will be the finished top. thanks for the support. I'll no doubt be back for more help seeing on a new project..

ready? KaffeHouse 38"x43"
won't know about border needs until I pick a top for the other side

Love it ! Great job !