Painted ladies uphill and down

Once the Christmas sewing was over, I had a list of quilts on my to-do list, and a wall hanging of little houses was not even on my radar.  However...

I have always loved house quilts, so when I saw this pattern, "Fierce Ladies"  by Eye Candy Quilts,  I just had to purchase it.

I started pulling fabrics almost as soon as I got home, but which fabrics to choose?  I have a drawer where I toss any fabrics that look like they might have been designed by Bonnie and Camille of Thimbleblossoms.  I love their cheerful color palette, and this house pattern seemed the right place to use them.

Having decided on the fabrics, I starting putting together combinations for building houses.

The piecing went fairly quickly and I soon had about a dozen houses ready to rise up my little  hill:

I was loving the color combinations, but something about the quilt just didn't set right with me.  Maybe it's because I am left handed, but I just felt that the houses should start at the top left and go down the hill instead of starting at the bottom and going up.   My husband voted to keep the houses as they were, but it just kept nagging at me to change them.

After much thought, I remade the door units to go in the other direction, and soon I had my little rows of houses going down the hill rather than up.

This orientation just seemed to settle more naturally for me, and I decided to go with it and finish the rest of the houses:

Before sewing the units together, I added some rick rack trim to the roof lines:

Adding the rick rack was as easy as just sewing a piece of rick rack to the top of the house block before adding the peaked roof unit.

The finished quilt top looks like this:

I may be teaching this pattern sometime soon at a guild workshop.  I will be sure to provide the directions for both uphill and downhill houses and let the quiltmaker decide.