Diane's Quilt Shop - A Scratch Building Project

Diane's Quilt Shop

An HO Effort in Scratchbuilding

The seed for this project came after spending a weekend at a lodge with some model railroaders and their wives.  

The ladies were creating the most amazing quilts as we were building our models.  

My friend, Stan's wife, Diane, is a superb quilter, so I decided to scratch build this structure in her honour. 

Diane's Quilt Shop is the red-roofed building to the right against the backdrop on my diorama.

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Bar Mills offers a "1-Kit" that gives the modeller beautiful laser cut wooden walls, windows and doors.

All the modeller needs to do is create their structure to any size and shape and go to town!

I had seen this add for a hobby shop in New York and I always liked the look of the photograph at the top.

The hobby shop's layout has this magnificent model railroad with that cool looking tan building.

In fact, the building itself reminded me of my own home with its dormer windows.  Why not build it?

Before cutting up my wooden pieces, I wanted to make sure that I had the proper shape.

A simple mock-up suffices out of cardboard.

The trickiest aspect of the mock-up was designing the dormers themselves.

Time to begin the walls.  I've placed the upper and the lower wall on the glass to show you a comparison.

It's taking shape with the nice wooden windows and doors.

A bit of paint.

Add some lettering and decorative art.

 To create the quilts that will hang in the storefront window, I went to the internet and googled quilt patterns.

I then brought them into a Word document, resized them and printed them out in colour.

A little box forms the storefront area.

I added a light to illuminate the interior.

Here is the lower wall section with the big storefront window.

And here is the finished product!

I've placed it momentarily with other background structures.

I think Diane's Quilt Shop will look nice in any scene.

But, I've chosen its home to be on my Boat Works diorama!

Where it looks like it truly belongs!

Here is an overall view of the diorama with Diane's Quilt Shop fitting in like a hand in a glove!

This scratchbuilding effort was pure joy for me, especially knowing that the structure is named for a friend.

Thank you for following along on this fun build.  

Have a wonderful day!  Mike Hamer, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada