It’s here! The “Christmas in July” Blog Hop has started and I am stop #3 on the hop, so make sure you see what
Amy and
The Patchsmith have made so far.
I love a charm pack, it’s a tiny sampler of a great fabric collection! I’d like to show you how to make this whimsical door or wall hanging for Christmas,
it’s an easy pattern to repeat with any Charm Pack.
What you will need besides fabric, sewing machine & thread!
1 Charms Square pack
2 Fat Quarters that coordinate with your charms and applique graphic
Backing Fabric
Lite Seam to Seam for applique (2-3 sheets) or whatever other fusible product you like
Embellishments like buttons, Rick Rack or ribbon (depending on your project)
Neutral (white) 2 1/2″ strips for borders (4)
The finished size is about 12″ x 36″ unless you add more sashing or borders.
The first thing you do is unwrap your charms pack and lay out all the squares. You will immediately notice that there is a pattern, a repetition of colors or designs throughout the collection. So now you get to play with the squares. (Before learning, there is always play time!)
Sort by pattern (above)
Or by color (below)
Sort the squares by similar pattern or color families until you have four squares that work well together, arrange them in a box that will be your block. Do this until you have 3 three different blocks. You may also want to separate a few squares for the text if you will be adding words to your banner.
Usually, as in the Halloween banner, a full charm pack, usually has four or more to a pattern as shown below.
The charm pack I chose for this project,
Santa’s Workshop by
Riley Blake, did not follow that rule : /
But I figured out how to make it work because I really like this collection, it’s fun!
So I have played with my squares until my brain says “that’s it.” Usually that happens after several attempts at combining patterns and colors. You may decide to leave reds out because that will be a good color for the letters to pop or decide to leave the whites out because your applique will have white and blend in. Play until you are ready, you have time before Christmas!
Careful how you sew them together, if you’ll notice above I goofed on the direction of the stripes.
I had to pick that out and re-do after it was sewn.
Here I tried to make sure the toys or most of it was right side up (the boy and the elf.)
Once you know how you want it, go ahead and sew the squares together to make your blocks. I did left/right squares together first, then sewed the top and bottom together.
I saved the red charms to cut into 2 1/2 inch squares to use as mini blocks on the corners of the white borders.
I like to lay it all out to see how it’s going to look, make any last minute changes.
Instead of sub-cutting all the strips,
you could also sew each block (the tops and bottoms) onto a whole strip.
There was some discrepancy with mine, this would have saved me some grief! The BLOCKS should be 9 1/2 inches (updated) square before you add borders. But always measure as with some pre-cuts it’s not exactly what we would assume!
Don’t forget to trim and even out edges if necessary!
Once the “in-between” strips are sewn on, cut your remaining strips to equal 6 strips measuring 9 1/2 by 2 1/2. Please measure your blocks just to be sure! Measure twice, cut once!! You are going to sew your squares to each end of the white strips. Start with a square and sew to a strip, alternating the order until you use 4 squares and three strips (2 sets)
Attach to your blocks.
My middle block has images of toys, I have selected two of those images (bear and ball) to applique on each of the top and bottom blocks.
I decided just to accent the middle with Rick Rack so you can still see the images. You can also just add another image to the center if you prefer.
I forgot to add the Rick Rack before joining the blocks
so I just made room inside the seams, no problem!
You can use a printer to enlarge the image you want and trace it onto the fusible paper as directions state on the reverse. Choose your FQ that matches your image or graphic.
I have decided to put the bear on the bottom because the color is very dark and appears “heavy” and put a ball/circle shape on the top block. (I used an embroidery hoop to get the right size.) Remember you want the applique to be a good size but you still want to be able to see the patterns in the blocks (after all that work!) I think 1-2 inches margin around is good.
Follow fusible directions for the appliqued image.
I used a short zig zag to go around my applique.
When quilting, because of the applique I could not “stipple” over the applique images
so I just accent quilted them by hand and used 6 strand of floss (I like that thickness over the buttons) and tied them on the back. I did this once all the quilting was done.
You can see the stippling below.
Ready for the binding!
I usually get backing fabric to match the front, I prefer something from that same collection but I have so much Christmas fabric that I used something I already had for the back and binding.
This project also serves the Christmas Once a Month “along” also courtesy of Julie from
The Crafty Quilter. Join us!
Julie’s got all the giveaways for the end of the week, keep up with the hop!
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