Charm Pack Quilt

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Instructions

Charm pack was sewn together using the techniques in this class. Borders, batting, quilting were based on personal experience and Craftsy machine quilting courses. Charm pack was sewn together using the techniques in this class. Borders, batting, quilting were based on personal experience and Craftsy machine quilting courses.

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Difficulty:

Category: Other

Type of item: Home Decor

For: Home

Style: Traditional, Mod, Classic, Casual, Outdoorsy

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Materials

Batik charm pack, batik fabric, fusible fleece, variegated thread, Steam-a-Seam2 Lite

What was your inspiration?

This is the first class I purchased at Craftsy, right after they started. I got a batik fabric charm pack and put together the blocks. Then it sat in my UFO pile. I've gone on to take other Craftsy classes and have been focusing this year on machine quilting. In addition to the Craftsy classes I've been participating in SewCalGal's 2012 Free Motion Machine Quilting Challenge. The May 2012 challenge was a tutorial by Leah Day on a Foundational Design enhancing a stipple stitch. I looked through my UFO pile, found these charms and decided it would be my test. I added the inner, outer and binding fabrics from my stash and bought a yard of new fabric for the back (not shown). I used fusible fleece for the batting and decided this would be a table topper/picnic quilt. To finish the quilt quickly I used a fast fusible binding. Quilting is with a varigated yellow gold thread that blends well with all the colors.

What are you most proud of?

Finishing! This is far from perfect but quite adequate as a knock around table topper and picnic quilt. The charm squares are joined almost perfectly (something I enjoy doing) and I like the not-really-random random spacing of the colors. I really messed up the quilting. Stitches are all over the place from very short to awfully long. I'm not that enthralled with the pattern and likely won't use it again. I did learn a lot. As I tell students who have taken my classes, learning what you do not like is as important as learning what you do like. I used a stencil (technique from Ann Petersen's Beyond Basic Machines Quilting course)) to do the looped outer border. Inner boarder was a simple freehand loop. To finish this really quickly I used a fused binding I learned from Robbi Joy Eklow. One UFO finished!

What advice would you give someone starting this project?

Take lots of courses so that you learn various techniques. Each teacher does a technique somewhat differently and you need to find the one that fits you the best. When taking a class, do the teacher's technique first. Learn what you like or do not like then go ahead and experiment!