Hello Dear Reader,

I have the most beautiful box of donated fabric which I will cut into charm packs and jelly rolls, ready to use them in a quilt for my dad. I was going to make him a quilt from all my old scraps but now I have enough fabric from donations and shirts to make him something rather special. Here’s a how to cut your own charm squares.

A pack of charm squares consists of 42 squares all measuring 5″ by 5″. It’s much easier working in factors of 12. A square that starts by being 5 X 5 will sew down into 4 X 4. I buy Hobbs batting from America - some one’s got to buy their stuff! That is in imperial sizes, for example - King size batting is 12′ X 12′. I can easily do that maths of how many squares I need when everything is a factor of 12. Simple maths for me please!

Onto cutting charm squares. I iron and lay my folded fabric onto my cutting board. As usual, I trim the edges and them cut away from me, in 5″ intervals.

I then end up with 5″ wide strips. In an answer to you yesterday, Dear Reader, you can make your strips or squares any size you want. There are lots of on line tutorials for quilts made with charm packs; I just make my own and then follow their designs at a smaller cost.

Next, I turn the strips to lie horizontally, line my ruler up at 5″ intervals and then cut away from myself to create 5″ squares.

I’ve had so much fabric donated today, that I’ll be able to make my dad a quilt from all new fabric. I’ll add in sashing from recycled fabric as well. I’ll need to cut 120 charm squares to make dad a twin size quilt (to fit his single size bed) and I’ll sew larger strips of the donated fabric to create the backing.

Now you’re going to wonder what I’m going to do with the scrappy quilt that I am making? Mmmm? I think it might be time for another give away!

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx