Friday, July 16, 2010

Charm Squares

Do you sometimes just want to 'kit up' a quilt to have your fabrics ready to sew? Even when you already have other UFO projects to do or quilts ready for quilting, you just want to gather some fabrics together and 'design' another new quilt. Well, I do, because that is one of my favorite parts, putting the fabrics together! This color scheme was brought together by two charm packs that I have on hand. The packs are similar in color so I think they'll work well together.
I recently received this book, Color Shuffle, by Karla Alexander as a birthday gift (it was on my wish list). As I thumbed through it, I found a quilt in the very back of the book which used the charm packs or 5" squares. Since I have two packs which total 80 squares, I thought I'd found the pefect project for them. I was not really thinking how many more I'd need to make 280 blocks but that's okay, I had plenty of stash to pull from.
Here are just a few of the 5" squares in the packs. I chose approximately 15 to 20 fabrics that blended with the charm squares and began cutting strips 5" wide and then cutting again into my squares. When I got finished, I was still lacking 85 squares so I was back into the stash to pull more.
Here you can see some 5" stacks cut. Next to it are some 'leftover' pieces which I just automatically cut into strips. Generally I now cut 2.5" strips since they are the jellyroll size and then I just make up my own jellyrolls. As you probably know, there are many books out there to 'help us' use those. I have a bin for 2.5" strips, 2" strips and Mixed Strips which take any that are not the above designated. They are great for string, log cabin or many other scrap quilts.
So, three hours later, here are all my 5" squares neatly stacked, ready to be recut into square in a square blocks, four patch and then some will just be left whole. Now my "kit" is all ready for me to sew when I get ready!!

3 comments:

Nancy said...

Judy, Are all your squares different? If so you must have a huge stash. This is going to be another great quilt.

judith lockhart said...

I used about 36 different fabrics to add to the charm squares, some just two blocks and others 8 or so, just depended on the size of the piece.

YankeeQuilter said...

Kitting sounds so much more official than playing in the stash...