Pre-cuts Wrangling!?!?! What does she mean? Has she been sniffing her fabric glue sticks (normally used for appliqué, not as recreational substances)?
“Pre-cuts” = Those addicting beautifully coordinated collections of pre-cut fabrics in common sizes such as 2 1/1 inch strips, 2 1/2 inch squares, 5 inch squares (aka “charm squares”), 10 inch squares, fat quarter (18 x 22 inch sections of fabric) bundles, and various other tempting configuations.
Wrangling = “To tend or round up” (Dictionary.com)
I have a lot of precuts, more than I need. Likely more than any human needs. I appear to use them to decorate my crafting studio.
Decided to do something crazy – actually USE them instead of just decorate with them!
In my post What’s on the Design Wall: Rediscovering my Charms I discuss delving into my charm pack (5 inch squares) collections and using them to make quilts and wallhangings. Taking a break from charm packs, I have moved to a smaller size of pre-cut – the 2 1/1 inch square pack. I wrangled up my collection of 2 1/2 square pre-cut packs and selected several colorful Rowan/Westminster Fabric packs to create a series of “16 patch” blocks to turn into a quilt. I pieced the 16 patch blocks into a scrappy “postage stamp” style quilt.
I provide some very general simple directions for wrangling your 2 1/2 inch pre-cut packs into a scrappy quilt below the photos.
2 1/2 Pre-Cut Quick Quilt (Wrangle & Design As You Go)
- Wrangle a couple packs of 2 1/2 squares (approximately 42 squares in each pre-cut pack) – I think I used 2 or 3 to start
- Chain piece non matching pairs of the squares – you will end up with a series of 2 patches
- Chain piece the pairs (2 patches) to another set of pairs (2 patches) – you will end up with a series of 4 patches
- Chain piece the 4 patches to another 4 patch – you will end up with a series of 8 patches
- Chain piece the 8 patches to another 8 patch and finally you will have a series of 16 patch blocks
- You can be careful and match your seams, and press between each patch construction or throw caution to the wind and not press until you complete the 16 patch
- Sew the 16 patch blocks into rows and then the rows together in to a quilt top
- Wrangle and Design As You Go – you might discover you need another 2 1/2 pack to get the size of quilt you want or you might have to save some 8 patches and use them on the side or bottom of the quilt to even out the rows. I used my design wall to decide what block “mathematical configuration” to use. I started with 4 x 7 (4 blocks in a row, 7 rows) but that seemed too narrow. I finally decided on a 5 x 6 quilt (5 blocks in a row, 6 rows of 5 blocks) and will take the row of blocks off the bottom of the design wall, add a couple more and add 1 additional block to each row.
If you are a new quilter or a future quilter and are unfamiliar with how to “chain piece”, check out numerous free online instruction videos available on YouTube or other sources.
tierneycreates 