Cut it Straight: Charm Quilt - Scraps to the Max

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Charm Quilt - Scraps to the Max

About two summers ago (maybe it was three) I decided it would be a great idea to go through my scraps and cut out whole quilts. (one of my children used to like to do this with a pair of scissors and paper. We called it 'making little ones out of big ones'). So, I went through each box of scraps and made little ones out of big ones.

I cut out a whole quilt's worth of squares to make into Flying Geese. That is - a whole quilt. Made out of Flying Geese. Mostly bright colors. No white.

I cut out pairs of fabrics to make square-within-a-square patches. I think they will turn out to be 6-inch squares.

I cut out JUST blue and white squares. Then I cut 1-inch strips of those fabrics, too. . . anticipating making what will look like a blue-argyle quilt.

I cut strips to make this nine-patch quilt. . . and actually finished it in one summer!

AND I cut out equilateral triangles. One out of every fabric. Just one. I had always wanted to make a charm quilt. The idea is to make a quilt where none of the fabrics are repeated.

I've spent a few nights (well, weeks) in the hospital with my daughter over the last few years. After going through all these scraps, I had something to do while we sat for hours. I put the fabrics into groups of four to make larger triangles. Then, when I had a little time at home, I would sew the sets of four together.

Then I was ready to put the triangles into larger blocks - diamonds. I invited my oldest daughter and a few friends over. We paired up triangle sets to make diamonds, and placed them . . . well . . . so they looked good.