My little Charm Square top for our February Precut challenge is done. I used 2 packs of charms (84 – 5 inch squares) and cut the border strips 2.75 inches. It will also be bound in the pink and I started with 2 yards of the pink border fabric but have a good size chunk left. It’s busy and bright I know but I think it will make a cheerful donation quilt.

I finished all my goals from last week – I don’t always post my goals here but having them set whether for a week or a month really does help keep you focused and progressing! This week my goals are:

• Assemble Charm Square top
• Quilt 2 tops
• Make orange Rainbow HeartStrings blocks
• Trim and get binding on one of the Maine quilts

I’ve already finished #1 and #4 today and the first top is loaded on the longarm and ready to quilt tomorrow.

The Map quilt is a finished top! It only took me 4 days but you know how I like to drag out the assembly of a quilt.

You can find the details of the pattern in this post although both times I’ve made it, I’ve adapted it. Neither of my quilts had borders and while Caleb’s dinosaur quilt had extra blocks, this one has even more. These blocks are set 7 x 10 for a quilt that measures 56 x 80 and Chris has already claimed this one although he will have to wait a while for it.

It really makes for such a cute quilt and just takes 5 fabrics. I’ve already set aside fabric for another one for donation although I don’t expect to get to it anytime soon.

I also loaded the last Maine top on the longarm tonight … I’ve narrowed the thread choices down to 3 but it’s not easy to choose a thread for an overall pattern on a top like this with solids and a lot of contrast between the blocks and background. I’m leaning toward one of the variegated threads but I’m not sure how they’ll work in the new machine. People say that it’s easy to use different threads in the Innova but I do see posts where people are struggling and I’ve had some breakage issues on a couple quilts I was free-motion quilting. However, I am going to do a pantograph on this one and I haven’t had thread issues on them so I might get brave and try it.

By the way, if you’re ever trying to figure out what thread to use on a quilt, unwind some of the thread from the spools you’re considering right on top of the quilt. It helps me eliminate ones that definitely won’t work!

The Tumblers are assembled and count as my precut project for January. I cut the tumblers with my 6 inch finished GO die and there are 13 tumblers across and 14 rows down making it about 58 x 84, a little larger than my usual donation quilts but I had extra tumblers so I used them.

I’ve been thinking about what my quilting goals are for this year … nothing too lofty.

• Piece a top each month for our Precut Party
• Keep my UFO number to 22 or below so I’ll need to quilt one top for each quilt I start with 12 of them being UFO’s.
• quilt and bind the 6 tops from Maine
• quilt whatever Mom throws at me!

Finally! The light/dark HeartStrings top is assembled and already hanging in the closet waiting it’s turn for quilting.

My Chandelier top is assembled! It’s another top that I went back and forth on whether or not to add borders. I’d even cut one for this quilt but my quilts tell me when they need a border and this one said it did NOT and I think the setting triangles stand out better without adding a border.

Take my advice, if you haven’t done something in a while stop and think it through and do a little research if you need to. I have NOT done an on point set in a long time but it’s simple right? You just assemble the rows diagonally – it’s not difficult! But for some reason, I kept messing up my pressing direction – I could not think sideways and I can’t tell you how many seams I re-pressed!

I used Charm squares for my quilt and didn’t use a pattern but do a search on google or Pinterest for Chandelier quilt and you’ll see lots of examples. It’s an easy one to make and I think it looks great. You’ll see most of the examples used white/background setting triangles but I don’t like quilts with too much “white” space and I think choosing a coordinating fabric for the setting triangles finishes it off nicely!

Someone also pointed out to me that there’s a free pattern from Jordan fabrics call Beads although I think that one uses fat quarters and not Charms so the block dimensions might be different.

I always underestimate how long it will take to assemble a quilt but the Hourglass top Is done! I love the vintage feel of this one – do you remember the antique one I shared a while back? I had made a couple quilts using a 4 inch finished block but I wanted a larger version. After some shopping around I bought a Blue Wren die to make a 6 inch finished hourglass block.