5in Squares become a Chandelier!

Starting with 2 very pretty packs of 5in Charm Squares, a pretty piece of grey fabric and a quest to try out a 'new to me' pattern, lead to this super fun quilt to make.  

The charm squares and background fabric. 
The pink fabric was later put away and not used.

The thing with Charm Square packs is that they are so pretty and gorgeous range of colours when you look at them side on.  

Such a pretty rainbow when viewed side on.

A nice, quick quilt to make, with easy cutting and chain piecing, I had the top together in no-time at all.  Since making this quilt, I have ordered 2 more charm square packs to make another one.  I just can't help myself!

A peek of the backing onto the front.

As each block only used 1.5 of each 5in square, I joined the rest of the pieces together to make a fun panel to put into the backing.  This is part of my goal to use all of the fabric in each quilt I make instead of accumulating left over scraps.

Left over pieces pieced together to make the back more interesting.

I quilted this quilt on my DSM with an all over surf-curl wave pattern, using 50wt variegated thread.  Super easy to quilt and no tension issues.  I'm pretty proud of the quilting on this one.

The finished quilt!  49in x 72in

We were having issues with the very sunny day and so the photo had to be taken under the verandah to stop it from being too blown out with the light.  An interesting quilt and a bit of break away from my 'usual' colour choices.






Chandelier Beads pattern can be found here.  I changed the pattern sizes to use 5in squares.

Strippy 4 patch

A few years ago, I had purchased a charm square pack - American Primer by Moda - to make up a quilt of my own design.  So I chose a complimentary taupe fabric to use for setting the blocks in.

I drew up some ideas, simple ones such as 4 patches, pinwheels and so forth.  I made the first 4 patch and the edges didn't meet.  Made another one, still not matching.  Ruler out, no, my cutting and quarter inch seam were fine.  Still not matching up and pieces being different sizes.  Turns out the 5in squares were actually 5 x 4-7/8, when I actually thought to measure a 5in square before cutting it!!!  How did I not notice that?

 

OK - deep breath - make all the 4 patches and then trim them to a smaller size, finishing at 3.5in, in the quilt.  Quite a bit smaller than I had originally intended, but easy enough to work with.

Trimmings!!

But then after the frustration of the 5in squares not being 5in square, followed by the trimming, I ended up with such lovely neat and very cute little blocks.

All neatly trimmed and ready to chain piece the setting triangles to the blocks.  Ahhh.... bliss.....

Given how much I love strip quilts, it was an easy leap to set the 4-patch blocks on point and set them with taupe triangles, even if the cutting did have to be a little bit fussy to make the pinstripe run up and down the quilt.

A nice large piece of gorgeous Japanese border type print, which was fussy cut along the printing lines to make up the alternate strips.

Detail showing the Japanese woven fabric panels (before quilting).

The backing uses a remaining piece of stripe plus this gorgeous Toile scene type print.  

Detail showing the quilting.

Each panel was quilted according the pattern in each strip.

I decided to turn it into a coverlet, which is an old style where the wadding is left out, but it is still quilted and bound to make a light weight summer quilt.  This was a challenge because the fabric needed a good hot steam press after quilting to get rid of the ripples caused by quilting only 2 layers.

A piece of red, leftover from my son's quilt last year was just enough to make the binding for this one and it was the perfect shade of red!  When sewing the binding down, it was sometimes difficult to get the thread just in between the two layers of fabric.

And finally, here it is, hanging at the Victorian Quilters Showase in July in the Coverlets category.....

......  No, I didn't win a prize for this one, but that's okay because I am very pleased with how my coverlet turned out AND... I learnt some new skills with regards to how fabric and thread behave when you quilt without wadding.

Sometimes all you need is serendipity and time to make something you love.