Welcome back for part 2 of my Jingle Wishes quilt which I design and made for the 12 Days of Christmas in July blog hop. Here is the super simple tutorial for making a version of your very own.
This quilt design is perfect for using up a lot of charms and half charms. You can use either full charm packs or charms that you might have leftover from other projects. It would also look fantastic made with scraps cut into charms so you could make it in whichever color scheme suits your fancy. The possibilities are endless....Halloween, patriotic, batiks, reproduction, 1930s.....you name it, this design works. I know for a fact that I'll be making more versions myself to use up more scrappy charms. I have a ton of them!
The beginning is easy enough.....sort your charms into color families. The charms you use for each individual row should all be the same color. The half charms in each row should also be all the same color but they need to be a different color than the full charms.
The beginning is easy enough.....sort your charms into color families. The charms you use for each individual row should all be the same color. The half charms in each row should also be all the same color but they need to be a different color than the full charms.
Pair up your full charms and half charms as the mood strikes you, making sure to mix up the prints for more interest. Here I paired up the Green charms with the Red half charms.
Then creating the blocks is just a matter of chain piecing until they are all done. How many you make it totally up to you and depends on how many charms you have available as well as how big you'd like your quilt to be.
The next step is just as simple. You'll add skinny sashing strips to the right side of each half charm. These skinny sashing strips are cut at 1" x 5" and will finish at 1/2" wide. Your completed block should now be 7 1/2" wide x 5" high.
Begin assembling your rows. The first row should start and end with a full block (full charm/half charm and sashing strip). Every alternating row should begin with half charm/sashing strip partial block and should end with a full charm. Use as many blocks in each row as you want your quilt width to end up.
During construction my quilt helper had to come check out and inspect my progress so far.
The rows come together fast and before long you'll see a sneak peak of how your quilt will eventually look. When designing my quilt I laid out all the charms and half charms before sewing anything in order to have control of the planned randomness. It truly bothers me if I end up with the exact same print next to each other or too much of one color together.
Continuing adding additional rows as you wish. Towards the end you might want to audition blocks before sewing them so that you ensure you get a nice overall mix of colors and prints and any areas isn't too saturated one way.
Here are all the completed rows. But wait. You aren't ready to sew them together into a completed quilt top just yet.
The next step is to add the horizontal sashing which are cut at 1 1/2" wide by however long your rows are. My rows are 57" long. Measure all your rows and use the average length for your sashing strips to ensure they will all line up correctly when sewn together.
Join strips as needed to get sashing strips the length you need and then sew a sashing strip to each row of blocks.
Once all the horizontal sashing strips are completed begin to sew your rows together in pairs, matching up blocks across the rows so that you have nice straight lines going down the quilt.
The completed quilt top should look like this. It is your choice whether or not to add a border(s). I chose not to for this one.
All that is left to do is to quilt it and add your binding. There are so many quilting designs that would work well for this pattern so have fun with it and let your creativity shine.
I'd love to see your completed quilts. I bet there will be a lot of different versions made from this tutorial. I myself will be making more of this one as I have a lot of scrap charms to use up.
Maybe I'll host a linky party so we can all show off our finishes. Let me know if you'd like to do this and when would be a good date.
Maybe I'll host a linky party so we can all show off our finishes. Let me know if you'd like to do this and when would be a good date.