It's Sew Plaid

Two charm pack quilts down, one to go!

This is a charm pack complete with instructions to make a tiny quilt, 12 3/4" square, a CD which includes fabric info, recipes, and another quilt pattern all put in a cute little tin, that I picked up at Sew Worth It in Sarasota about 4-5 years ago. The fabric collection is called "Follow Your Heart" by Kathy Schmitz, and it's Moda again.  How I love Moda fabrics.  The hand, their designers...ahh.

My husband went golfing for the day, so I was excited to have the condo to myself, and sew all day.  I had the charm square quilt to finish (I'd sewed a few of the light bars between the squares last night), as well as get the appliqué foundation sewn onto my Self Round Robin, and I had hopes (slim ones, but still) of starting to baste my Brrr Park quilt.  The charm square quilt took me 5 of the 7 hours I had today!  Unreal how it is always more than I allow for.

After I did the first Charm Square quilt, I knew I wanted to leave the squares intact.  It killed me to trim off and throw away an inch on 2 sides of each 5" square in that first quilt!  I also grabbed myself by the scruff of the neck and said, "You are designing this little quilt. No avoiding it.  How hard can it be?  Just do it."  Eek!  I said to Dayna today that I'm proud and a little giddy that I like it so much!

Here is the original picture again of the charm square packs I brought with me:

Cute tin, huh?

I first took them out and just looked at the colours which were black, red, green and tan, as shown on the tin.  I thought of doing a study in shading, and then it went from there into mainly shading from black to the tan.

Here it is in the early stages:

I liked it.  However, it would be quite small, only 31 1/2 by 36" and I wanted it a little bigger.  I had some of the light-coloured fabric left over from the first charm square quilt, so I put a few as spacers in and instantly knew it was right.

Still, I didn't want the horizontal sashing in the light fabric (and I didn't have enough left over, lol) so I knew I had some lots of Kona black cotton (bought 6 yards at Alma Sue's last year for a yoga bag, and for practice quiltlets with my longarm, and well, it was only $5/yard, and one can never have enough of, or go wrong with, black, n'est-ce pas?!).  So, I dug it out and tried a leftover strip from making the back of the "Merry Catmas" quilt, and I liked the effect.  I was unsure how it would continue to look as it approached the lower rows where there are lots of black squares.

After the first 3 rows were sewn with the light-coloured bars, I cut 3 full strips of the Kona cotton to see the effect.

 I'm sure you'll agree, the black is just fine!!

It needed a final frame, one not too overpowering, but one that would put a full stop at the end of the sentence, so to speak.  I got Joe's opinion on my thoughts, and he agreed, a frame was needed.  I cut the final border at 3.5" so it will finish at 3".

Voilà!

I love it!  It finished at 47X52 3/4", a nice-sized lap quilt.  I already have an idea percolating as to what to do with the last charm square pack.  And there is my Self Round Robin yet.  And my daughter, Dayna, is arriving this afternoon for 5 days, so not sure how much sewing I'll accomplish when she will be in my sewing/guest room!  Can't wait to see her.  :-)