Prints Charming

Here is the quilt I made using charms from the swap we did a Portland Modern Quilt Guild last month.

After the charm swap I went home and looked through all my pretty little squares, stacking and re-stacking them, laying them out and looking at all the beautiful fabrics. (Please tell me I'm not the only one who does this sort of thing.) I tried to imagine what kind of projects I could do with this great variety but only very small amounts of each print. I realized that it sort of represented to me the process of making new friends and that the only thing they needed to have in common was that I liked them all.

There were a few charms that I couldn't bear to cut into so they ended up in the square panel at the bottom, along with the three charm fabric patterns that I contributed to the swap. I kept thinking "Make new friends, but keep the old" as I was working on this so it seemed appropriate to include them.

The quilt measures about 60 inches square and represents a lot of 'firsts' for me. First time doing any kind of improvisational piecing. I didn't measure any of the charms, just cut them into two or three pieces and then put them all in a paper bag. Drew them out one by one and made the borders. First time using so much solid fabric and leaving so much negative space. First time using bed sheets for the solids and the binding (100% cotton, from IKEA, I like the finished quilt but the sheets are kind of annoying to work with).

Here you can see the solid that makes up the back of the quilt. And aren't all those little fabric bits just fabulous? Kind of like all the new quilty people I'm meeting!