Charm pack baby quilts – Craft Gossip

Image from quilted castle

You can make a baby quilt lightening fast using charm squares like this Moda precut called Wonderland by MoMo available on sale at The Quilted Castle for 7.00 USD. A Charm Pack consists of 40 squares of 5” X 5” fabric

There are many patterns and tutorials available if you need design inspiration or direction in using a charm pack.

Amy Smart of The Quilting Diaries blog shares a nicely written tutorial for a simple baby quilt using Moda Wonderland. She says this about using specialty cut fabrics:
Charm Packs are an easy way to make a simple baby quilt with a large variety of different but coordinated fabrics.

Go here to get her tutorial.

If you have time and want something more challenging, check out this Baby Dot-to-Dot quilt pattern by Cotton Way. It has a design for a girl and one for a boy, so you get two! Price $8.00 USD.

Go here to get more details about the Dot-to-Dot pattern and to see the entire collection of Charm Pack Patterns.

Image from Fat Quarter Shop

Be sure and share your quilt made from charm squares at Craft Gossip Flickr group.

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I have not done a lot of big cross stitch projects, but sometimes even with small projects it can be hard to decide exactly where to begin and how to work through the chart if you’re working with multiple colors. The general categories for the possible methods are known as cross country and parking.

Cross country means that you’re working one color at a time, moving around the chart (or the section of the chart you’re working on) until you’re done with that color. Parking means you’re working in a smaller section and doing all the colors in that area, “parking” the threads by leaving them attached to the canvas but out of the way while you finish each section.

Royal Rows is a specific way of parking named by Alison Royal, which is explored in detail on a post on Stitching Daily.

The idea is that you’re working one “tower” of stitches at a time (she uses a section of 10 stitches across by 20 down, but you can do whatever makes sense to you). You work all the stitches of a color at a time, starting at the top left and working your way down. When you’re done with a color you can park it where needed in the section below your current tower (known as the dungeon) or in the “east tower,” which is the section to the right.

There’s also a specific way of dealing with thread ends when you’re done with a color. This is a super simplified version (head to the blog post at Stitching Daily to get all the details) but the basic idea is that you’re working from left to right and top to bottom across the work, parking the threads in the next section when you’re done with them and systematically choosing which color to work with next.

The whole idea of parking is kind of overwhelming to me though I will admit that it makes a lot of sense. I guess I need to try it on a smallish big project and see how it goes. Do you use the parking method of cross stitch? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo via Stitching Daily]

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