DIY Quilted Gifts in a Hurry

I love giving handmade gifts, but over the years have discovered that my procrastination gene really messes up this plan - it's a little hard to start in November and make 20 different people a nice handmade gifts plus decorate, bake and clean up my house!  This is one of the reasons I have fallen in love with pre-cut quilt pieces...Jelly Rolls, Charm Packs, Layer Cakes.  By starting with one of these you cut your work in half and get right to fun part - sewing.

With this in mind I have been working on creating a series of fun projects using a Charm Pack (which is quite economical at under $10.00 most of the time).  All of these projects can be finished in an afternoon or evening - including quilting!

This is my Fall Charmer pattern.  I made this using a S'More Love Charm Pack.  (by Cosmo Cricket for Moda Fabrics)  The piecing is really simple, and it allows for lots of creative fun as you arrange all the squares to suit yourself - you could do it so many ways!   

Shuffling around the squares is half the fun! I think it would be striking to make one with one leaf in all orange fabrics and the other in yellows, then using the browns and blues and greens for the background.  Hmmm - now I might have to buy another Charm Pack.  (See, they are addictive!)

For the back you only need a half yard of fabric!   I'll bet you have something in your stash that will work - or you could always piece together a couple of fat quarters.   Then the binding only takes a quarter yard.  I squeezed this one out of a scrap of fabric that was the perfect green - it has a few more seams, but the piece was just big enough - hurray!  (I love being able to work out of my stash - which seems to be mostly bits and pieces less than a half yard.)

Quilt it up with a simple overall design like this spiral - it doesn't take long to do a piece this small!  Or you could do some straight line quilting to make it even easier.  Add your binding and you have a wonderful gift that will delight the recipient (don't forget to make a label for the back with your name on it so they will always remember who made them this beautiful quilted gift!)

You can see all 8 of my Charm square patterns by clicking the link below - any one of them could be used to make a quick gift that would be perfect for someone special!  If you have never purchased a pattern on Etsy before, it's very easy and your pattern is available as soon as you pay!  You can actually download your pattern and start your quilt today - talk about instant gratification.  Take that, procrastination gene - we are getting our gifts done early this year!

Charm Square Patterns

Very Charming Baby Quilts

Wow, I certainly don't know where the last two weeks has gone! Well, actually, four days were spent in Portland visiting our kids and grandkids, two full days and a half at the quilt shop - so that's about half of it! In the mean time I've finished three baby quilts and a Christmas wall hanging, altered a few dresses and re-lined a leather jacket (and what a job that is!). I've got two more quilts basted and ready to quilt, and some window shades to finish and.....that's where all the time goes.

The baby quilts have been an off-shoot of a custom request, and while you are making one, well you might as well make three or four, right? They are just simple quilts made using charm squares and pretty border fabrics.

I pulled a great vintage piece of fabric out of my stash (very sad, things I have purchase myself can be called vintage!) for the backing of three of them. It was supposed to be window curtains for my little girls who are now grown and out of my house - but it makes great quilt backs.

When I am finished with the girl quilts I'll have to make a batch of boy quilts to go with them - baby quilts are always fun!

Charm Swap - Jacob's Ladder

I thought I would share this great block and talk about how I made it with charm squares. I am participating in a charm swap/challenge with batiks. Each participant ended up with about 115 five inch batik charm squares. We may add two fabrics and have to use every fabric we received. The finished quilt can be any size we like. I knew right away that black would be one of my added fabrics. It took some thinking to come up with a design, because I was limited due to the size of the charm squares. One day this block came to mind because it makes good use of the squares I had.

To make Jacob's Ladder, also known as the Road to California, you need to make two different units. Each block requires four half square triangle blocks and five 4-patch blocks. Each are easy to cut out of charm squares and waste very little fabric. Today I will tell you how to make the half square triangle squares, next week we will make the 4-patches and the following week, make the block and talk about design ideas using these.

For each block you will need two 5 inch squares of background and two 5 inch squares of fabric for the design. Make sure you have good contrast so your design will show up well.

You will want to mark the lighter of your two fabrics with a pencil from corner to corner diagonally.

Sew 1/4 inch to each side of your marked line.

Cut your square in half on the marked line.

Press seam toward the darker half of your square.

Trim square to 4 1/2 inches. If you are using pre-cut charm squares you may still have some pinked edge on the side of your block, but that's ok, it will be in the seam allowance.

My quilt is 4 blocks by 6 blocks so I sewed 48 of these, making 96 finished half square units. I mixed them all up in the blocks so no block has two of the same. If you just want to make a sample block for future reference you can use all the same color like I am doing for my sample block.

Next week I have two ways to make the four patch blocks, see which one you like the best!