Charm Pack Quilts

Once upon a time I was adamantly opposed to buying precuts. When they first came out however many years ago, I viewed precuts as just a gimmick designed to catch quilters and their hard-earned dollars.

I did a decent job of avoiding them for quite a long time, too. But somewhere along the line, I purchased one. And then another. Before long, I was buying precuts like my life depended on it. Layer Cakes. Charm Packs. Jelly Rolls. Fat Eighths.

The big problem I encountered was that I would buy them and then not use them, so I was amassing quite a precut stash. I tried a couple of projects eventually, especially when I discovered Schnibbles. I disliked wasting any part of a precut, though, and it seemed that for nearly every pattern I used there would be precut fabric in the waste basket when finished.

I set about to remedy that dilemma this week, and in the process I have made two quilt tops with some of these Charm Packs, and I didn't waste a bit. Success!

My immediate need was twofold. First, I needed a baby quilt for a soon-to-be-born baby girl. Second, I needed an easy quilt to teach for the beginning quilters who have expressed a desire for such a project.

The first quilt was the baby girl quilt. I had two Charm Packs of Lily & Will fabric by Bunny Hill Designs. I decided to make a square quilt with 64 of these 5" charm squares sewn together in random fashion. Then I would find a cream in my stash to use for a narrow inner border. Finally, I would take the remaining charm squares, cut them in half and create a piano key border.

Creating a project as you sew leads to learning a few things along the way. First, and most importantly, I learned that I would have done better with three Charm Packs rather than two. I had to resort to cutting additional 5" squares from some stash fabric that melded nicely into the colors. I used a stash white-on-white for the inner border, and I added that into the piano key borders, too.  I decided to use corner blocks for the outer border, and that made making the borders fit a much easier process that I was expecting.

Time of construction for this baby quilt, which measures at right around 50" square, was just a few hours. It was extremely satisfying to finish it so fast, and be so pleased with the results. I was pumped to make another one.

Since I want to teach this in a class for beginners, it seemed like a good idea to produce a second quilt in something other than baby quilt fabrics. People need to see the variety of possibilities, especially beginners. With that goal in mind, I returned to the Charm Pack stash and pulled out three packs - all Barbara Brackman lines: two of Civil War Jubilee and one of Civil War Homefront.

I tried streamlining a few steps, and made notes along the way to use when I teach the class. It came together just as easily as the first, and I am again loving the result. I am calling this project Triple Charm, as it requires three Charm Packs. (There will be a few leftover pieces; I will show students how to use them so they don't feel they've wasted fabric.)

Easy, right? Straight sewing; no triangles; no cutting for the center; simple inner border cut at a standard 2.5". The only complex part of this project is the outer border. Cutting all the 5" blocks into 2.5" halves, sewing together in a random fashion using an accurate quarter-inch seam will be good practice for beginning students.

Now I need to set a couple of dates, and get the word out.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

A Wall Hanging for Mom

At Christmas time you may recall the unique gift exchange our family did. We offered coupons with a gift of time or talent, drew them randomly, and could steal if something we really wanted had been drawn earlier by someone else. It is a lot of fun, at least I think so. Here's a link explaining it more fully.

 

Above is the gift I entered into the drawing and my mom was the lucky recipient!! Yaay, Mom! We sat together for a bit and looked at some Pinterest images so that I could get a feel for what she wanted. She said she'd prefer to have a wall hanging, so this weekend I began working on this gift.

I've had this book for several years, and love looking at the sweet little quilts in it. It is well suited to using Charm Packs (thus the name), so I decided on a pattern I think Mom will like.

 This quilt is small at 18"x21", so I think I will add a few rows to make a more suitable size.

Prepped for marking the diagonal line.

A wide variety of 2 3/8" squares.

Ready to cut.

I used two Charm Packs. I have yet to decide how big I will make this wall hanging, so I expect I will have leftover HSTs. And that's okay because I get a feeling that I will want one of these for myself, too! *grin*

A growing stack of HSTs. It's fun seeing the colors pop out of the browns and beiges.

So, I am happily stitching on a NEW project! The UFOs are still there, and I will get back to them, but I am really glad to be working on something different for a change.

Happy Quilting, Friends!