Layers of Charm, Fat Quarter Shop Shortcut Quilt

A couple of months ago, I received an email, asking me if I wanted to take part in a blog hop with Fat Quarter Shop.  Imagine my reaction.  My first thought was Fat Quarter Shop know my name!  And then I thought of course they do I buy from them all the time! And then I thought definitely yes I want to make Layers of Charm.  I love the short cut series having made Charm Pack Cherry and Fat Quarter Fizz.  So welcome to my stop on the Fat Quarter Shop, Layers of Charm blog hop! 

The pattern requires 1 layer cake and 1 charm pack  or thirty six 10" squares and thirty six 5" squares.    A printed layer cake and a solid charm pack is recommended.

As soon as I saw the pattern I couldn't stop thinking about Solids!  I thought maybe the 1930's Colours Bella Solids would be fun but I settled for the Modern Bella Solids in greys and off whites.  My layer cake and charm pack of Bella Solids white were duly dispatched last November, and then stepped into the quantum leap accelerator that is the Chicago Postal depot, and vanished!

I did eventually get my hands on that elusive layer cake and put the quilt top together.  Instead of using all solids in the centres, I cut up one of each layer cake colour to give me 20 squares and added 16 solid white.  I really like this quilt top but have to admit I am somewhat relieved it was not my main blog hop quilt.  Quilting this one has me running scared.  All that open space.  How would you quilt it?  Straight line, free motion?

In the meantime though, while Moderns was wandering around the world, I decided that Layers of Charm would be perfect for large scale prints that I usually have trouble figuring out what to do with!

I had some yardage of these fabrics by Amy Butler and decided to cut a 10" strip from 9 different fabrics.  I was able to get four 10" squares from each strip and used Moda Bella Porcelain for my 5" squares.  I love this colour and it may be my new background fabric of choice this year.

In the end I didn't like the stripey fabric dominating too much and swapped 2 out for a blue dot.   And this is the finished quilt!

Winter weather interfered with getting lovely location shots, so I tried a few photos in trusty places.  I usually use this fence to take outdoor close ups of quilting.  Wilbur was getting a bit agitated as I was pegging the quilt up and when I stepped back to take the shot, he dived in digging and came out with a rawhide bone!  He's a bit of a digger and he has 4 or 5 spots around the garden.  Guess this is his latest one!  Sorry Wilbs for invading your spot!

I quilted this with an all over flower pattern and wrote about it and solving tension problems on my machine on this post.

I left Wilbur to chewing his bone and decided to try some indoor window shots to give you a better view of the quilting.

I really like the effect on this quilt but it is slower than a wiggly stipple and gives some challenges moving around the quilt top.  You have to be careful to not leave too empty a space.  I used my favourite Aurifil light pink 50wt thread #2410 for the entire quilt. I love that thread colour, it just seems to go with everything!

For the backing, I used 4 different prints I had on hand in half yard cuts.  I just sewed them together 2 per row and trimmed off the excess.

Trying to match binding was a little bit tricky with so many colours in the quilt top.  Mum suggested Navy, Gordon went for orange but in the end I had to trust my instinct and go with this green stripe, again from Amy Butler.

I turned away from  the table to make a cup of tea and came back to find Charly, on guard, perched on top.  There are two terriers bigger than her that walk past our house on a Sunday morning, Spot & Buddy.  She does not like them!  She does like doing a Princess and the Pea impression though. 

Sorry Charly you can't keep this one either!  This is going to my friend Caitriona.  I kept getting reminded of our holiday in China (4 of us spent 22 days there - best holiday ever!) and this, I think, is Caitriona's style.  Hope she likes it!

The fog didn't lift for the whole day yesterday.  Final photo artfully draped over the sofa (artful draping is not easy!).

So, what do you think?  Feel like making a Layers of Charm Quilt?  Solids or print?

The video will be available today on You Tube and Kimberly shows step by step instructions and some handy hints for pressing seams open.

You can also download the free pattern at Fat Quarter Shop where there is a whole host of free patterns and video tutorials including Layers of Charm.  There are size options for a table runner all the way up to a King Size bed quilt.

This really was a fun, very quick to piece and very versatile quilt pattern.  Probably the quickest quilt top I've pieced to date.  If you have large scale prints, looking to make something quickly or just want to use up a layer cake feeling unloved in your stash, why not give Layers of Charm a try?

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WIP Wednesday - Blame Craftsy!

There is something about text prints that I love and Oriental text prints are really hard to ignore!  I saw this print and loved the deep blue colour (no idea what it says!) so when I was buying fabric on Crafsty and realised that my shipping costs would be the same if I bought some charm packs and a jelly roll, or added in a fat quarter bundle, I didn't hesitate to pad out my order with this 15 FQ bundle from Robert Kaufman.  There was a choice between a blue or a red colourway and of course I went for blue!

As soon as I got it, I opened it up, admired all the pretty prints and then promptly put it away again.   It's been sitting on a shelf staring at me this past while and of course I keep walking by thinking, I must do something with that bundle!

Then I saw what Susan @ The Bored Zombie did with her similar purchase and then Fat Quarter Shop released a free pattern, Fat Quarter Fizz, using pretty much these colours so that was it.  My mind was decided for me!

The pattern calls for 20 FQ's and so I added some creams from stash and some lightweight denim material, I had been gifted from my Aunt, to make up the numbers.  (Hope this works - not used denim in a quilt before!)  There was some difference between the cuts in my stash and this bundle.  Some of my FQ's were 18 x22 and some 18 x 21 so a bit of lining up and trimming to cut 4 at a time was needed.

What I like about Fat Quarter Shop's free patterns is the clever way they show you to make a quick simple quilt.  In this case using two 6.5" rulers to cut 13" strips.

The 13" strip is then sub cut into a square and a rectangle and you take one large dark square and sew to a small light rectangle and vice versa and cut them up again! So that is what I will be doing this week.

I do have some left overs, some strips and 68 squares 4.5" x 4.5".

They will probably go back on the shelf for now!

Any suggestions for these?

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Charm Pack Cherry - a fun & quick quilt top!

You know when you see a new fabric range and you just have to have it.  You try and ignore it, given the fact that you already have 2 unopened FQ bundles sitting on the shelf, but eventually you can't help it, you visit every online shop you know of, wander around etsy for a bit and even check out ebay to see if the shipping charges are any better! 

Well that was me with Noteworthy by Sweetwater for Moda.  The moment I saw it I knew I was going to end up buying it.  Feeling totally guilty, I did avoid the FQB (see 2 on hand above!) but I did buy 2 charm packs, a layer cake and a jelly roll!

So they have been sitting in my stash for a while now.  I do have plans for the layer cake and the jelly roll (another Strip & Flip quilt and Anita Grossman Soloman's Arrowhead Block quilt) but I had nothing in mind for the charm packs until I saw the free pattern from Fat Quartershop Charm Pack Cherry.  There is even a you tube video that walks you through the process.  It's made up of 9 patches which when chain pieced go together very quickly.

You make 8 of them starting with solid, print, solid and the other 8 print, solid, print.  I had a charm pack of Moda Bella Solids in neutral shades.  The colours varied from cream to beige and I thought it would mix in well with Noteworthy and instead of using all the one solid colour it could be interesting variation.  The pattern called for 2 charm packs of prints and 2 of solids so only having 1 solid on hand I cut up some yardage of Essex linen in natural and a cream tone on tone in 5" squares to get enough for the 16 blocks. 

The free instructions are really easy to follow and even give recommendations for pressing to make matching seams really easy.  The only difficulty I had in the piecing was down to me and my seam allowance.  I got a new machine for Christmas, a Pfaff Passport which is much smaller and lighter than my Husqvarna Viking.  I intend to bring it to sewing nights and classes that I hope to take this year.  I did get a 1/4" foot with it and decided to try the new machine with this project to get a bit more used to it.  I snapped on the 1/4" foot without testing it and it is not 1/4"!

It's leaving me the teeniest bit short so I need to play with it and probably move the needle to find the sweet spot.  Of course I should have done this before launching into a project but at least with this pattern consistency is more important that exact measurements.  I'm not making blocks for Bees or swaps, so I can live with a smaller dimension.  Once I noticed I was coming up short I kept on going without changing anything to ensure the blocks were consistent and would nest together ok.

The pattern calls for the blocks to be cut in half and gives dimensions.  As mine were slightly off I folded the blocks in half to find the centre line and cut along that.  Re-arranging the cut pieces as below gives the 2 blocks that make up the rest of the pattern.

 

So here they are up on the design wall ready to be sewn together.  I really like the scattered nature of this quilt and am delighted with the colour mix between pattern and print.  If you have 2 charm packs, forgotten about in your stash or just waiting for the right project, check out the free pattern.  It's a quick, fun pattern to make.  I've really enjoyed it and am thinking of stippling it all over in the quilting stage to make it nice and wrinkly!

 

(Oh and in case you are wondering my makeshift design wall is propped up at the moment on the dogs travel crate!)


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