That Quilt Along

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My fabrics... Moda Swell charms, Kona Snow, & Kona Lake

I'm so excited for everyone to be joining me!  This is going to be a lot of fun whether you are a brand new quilter or even an advanced quilter.  Will your quilt be perfect?  Nah.  Will you love it?  I sure hope so... :)

This week we need to gather our fabric and supplies.  I promised to keep this as basic as possible for the new quilters so feel free to read ahead if you already have your quilting supplies.  Here are the basic supplies:

• rotary cutter & self healing cutting mat
• a quilter's ruler {a 6"x24" works well}
• scissors
• seam ripper {grrr...}
• thread in a neutral color {I like Gutermann}
• a basic sewing machine
• iron & ironing board
• hand sewing needle
• straight pins
• fabric marking pen/pencil

Now on to the fun part... the fabric!

Charm packs are great because you get a whole line of fabric {approx 42 squares} for around $8.  A charm square is 5"x5" and is easy to work with in a lot of different projects.
 

Our Quilt Along Design... Simple & Modern

In this quilt, the charm square will be the feature of each block.  Like I said in my previous post, you could easily use squares cut from fat quarters, etc because variety isn't that important.

I plan to put a white border around each of my charm squares, add some wonkiness, and then add a larger border of color. You can vary this however you would like.  I will need approximately 1 yard of white and 2 yards of light blue.

I use Kona solids.  Please don't confuse Kona with broadcloth if you are in a store like Joann's.  Broadcloth does not wash or hold up well. Trust me on this one. :(

When selecting your fabrics, you want the charms to "pop", float in the neutral border, and then have a nice contrast to the larger border fabric.  That's my vision at least.  You could easily reverse this and have the color border your charm and then white be your larger border.

If you have any questions selecting your fabrics or about the quilt along in general feel free to post here or send me an email!  I have also set up a Flickr group so we can share our progress, ask questions, and have some fun getting to know each other.

Happy fabric shopping!!

P.S. My blog button on the left sidebar is working now!  Feel free to grab it and invite your friends to quilt along with us :)

To clarify... this quilt will measure approximately 54" x 63" and yes, it will use all 42 charm squares.  My sketch didn't include all 42 squares... I was a little tired and cross-eyed after a late softball game. ;)