It’s been very busy at our house as we prepare for our son to return from his National Guard Advanced Individual Training and for the arrival of our youngest daughter who is moving to Montana. During the fourth of July holiday we “went off grid” so to speak while we staged rooms of our house, cleaned out closets and did some major organizing. My sewing studio was piled high with stuff we needed to go through and either get rid of or put away in an organized way. Now that’s all done and we are enjoying the fruits of our labor. We still have a few more things to do, but for the most part the major stuff is done.
The first thing I wanted and NEEDED to do was “make something” and I had just received a box in the mail from Missouri Star Quilt Company with a collection of charm packs. First up was making a sample quilt to inspire the students of my upcoming sewing camps. Each one of them will be given a charm pack with which to design and make their very own lap quilt!
If you are new to quilting, a charm pack is a fabric bundle containing 5″ squares of precut quilt fabric featuring an array of coordinating fabrics from a designer’s collection. The best selections of these I’ve found are at Missouri Star Quilt Company and The Fat Quarter Shop.
I decided to go with some of Kaffe Fassett’s beautiful, colorful and artistic collections for my class.
I chose to make my sample quilt using the 2018 Fall charm pack placing them 5 across I used all but 2 squares. I simply began laying them out on my cutting table and playing with the fabrics like puzzle pieces experimenting with which ones looked good next to each other. When I had a layout I liked, I sewed each row of 5 together using a 1/4″ seam then I sewed all those rows together until my quilt top was pieced.
I decided to use a solid black quilting cotton I had in my stash for the wide border. I cut strips at 3″ wide and using a 1/4″ seam that gave me a 2 1/2″ border around the printed blocks. I tried several fabrics I had in my stash for the outside border, but ultimately decided to visit my local fabric shop to choose another Kaffe Fassett fabric.
Kate at The Confident Stitch has a very nice selection of the Kaffe Fassett fabrics and it didn’t take but a few minutes of looking to decide I wanted to emphasize the fall colors in the other fabrics. I selected Brandon Mably Baubles in black and purchased 1/2 yard so I would have enough for another quilt. I cut my outer border strips 2 1/2″ wide.
Deciding on the backing for my quilt was a bit more time consuming. It’s hard to pick from so many great choices! I landed on a Courtney Cerruti design called Bokeh in sunset.
I debated the binding, but finally decided to use the same fabric I used for the backing for the border as well. I cut my border strips at 2 1/2″ in width for my binding. I like to sew my binding to the quilt, press the binding over the edge of the quilt and then finish the binding by hand.
Quilts come in all shapes and sizes. As far as quilts are concerned, there is no “right” size. My finished lap size quilt ended up being 44″ X 31″, which I believe will be a nice lap size quilt for a pre-teen, which is the age group of my students in my sewing camp.
I’m excited to see what they will do with their Kaffe Fassett Charm Packs in a few weeks.
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