Charm Squares

 Charm squares... those little 5" rays of sunshine made from a coordinating range or grouping of fabrics.  I had bought a few as part of a Pulse nightclub shooting fundraiser... and also the odd one here and there when they have proved too tempting.  But the real question is... what do you do with them?  They dont really have enough yardage to achieve much... and sometimes the charms just dont all go together.

Well, I decided to use two of them in two different sew alongs happening at the moment.

#sewcialitesQAL  (which is one block per week) is using my Blue Carolina charm pack, and this plus a white background are the only fabrics.  I am using the charm squares with the intention of utilising the size of the squares to the fullest... so blocks are being resized to whatever the measurement turns out to... based on those original 5" squares and doing little to no trimming.  It's a challenge!

The 3rd block:

And the three blocks together.  The charm pack has a nice range from very light to very dark prints... so it creates a soft yet dynamic look.

The #stitchpink QAL has new blocks every day for the month of October to raise breast cancer awareness.  For these blocks I have a Basic Grey Stiletto charm pack and have added some neutrals from my stash to fatten up the project.  I am trying to use the charm squares strategically but this time I am keeping to the instructions size of 12" blocks and using the stash fabrics when the pieces need to be larger.  There are some blocks I don't like, so I'm allowing myself to pass on those ones, and also some blocks that don't really suit the 5" square... and it's OK to pass on those too.

Block one used one charm square for the centre cut to 4.5" and the small triangles in the corner squares used a second one.

Block 2 was a bit more tricky.  Again the centre is a charm square, and I cut a second into the inner star points.  Then two more charms were used for the tan in net star background.  For a change... this charm pack actually has few doubleups.

For the 3rd block, I cut two charms in half to create the large triangles.  A third charm was cut into 4 small squares to form the plus shape.

This process is turning out such different results!  It really is very exciting.