I love quilts that are easy to put together.  This is one of those quilts!  Not only that, but it hardly takes any fabric to whip up a sweet little quilt like this one.  This tutorial will take you through creating the two different blocks this quilt uses and putting together the quilt top.  The open window blocks that utilize the neutral solid in the center of the block are great for trying out new free-motion quilting stitches. This quilt finishes at approximately 32" square.


Sweet Girlie Charm Square Quilt
You'll need:
1 charm pack
1 yd neutral solid
36" square piece of batting
1 yd backing fabric
1/3 yd binding fabric

Cutting Instructions:
From your charm pack:
    Set aside 8 charms to stay whole
    Cut the 24 of the remaining charms in half, yielding two 2.5" x 5" pieces from each charm


From your neutral solid, cut 
     8 - 5" squares
    16 - 2.5" x 5"
    16 - 2.5" x 9"

Block Assembly:
Note: There are two different blocks in this quilt: Block A and Block B.
To assemble block A:

2. Starting with two sides of your square that will require two charm square halves, pair one set, right sides together, and seam together using a 1/4" seam. Press your seam open. Repeat for the opposite side.

3. Next, seam one charm square half to the top and the bottom of your neutral charm square as shown below. Press seams open and repeat for the opposite side of the charm square.
4. Pair up your seamed set of halved charm squares with your block so far, right sides together, doing your best to center this piece with your block.  The seamed set of halved charm squares will be longer than your block, but we'll trim it down, no worries :)  Use a 1/4" seam to join, press seams open, then repeat for the opposite side of the block.


 5. Take your block over to your cutting mat and trim off the little tails on the long sides of the block.  This block finishes at 8.5", so square up as necessary here.
Ta da! You've finished your first Block A. Now, you'll repeat steps 1-6 to create 7 more Block As, for a total of 8.

2. First, seam the short strips to the top and bottom of your charm square, using a 1/4" seam, and pressing your seams open as you go.

I am pleased to report that I have finally just about beaten my evil cold...only to pass it back to the person I caught it from, my little munchkin.  He's such a trooper, though, he keeps telling me, "I'm really not so sick, Mommy" after his coughing spells.  Poor kid.  I see some movies in our future today.

In other news, there's only another 37 days until Christmas.  Really!  Melanie and I have promised each other not to freak out about how quickly the holidays are coming up, so I'm going to do my best to just go ahead and add my holiday projects to my list and not panic.  Can you try to hold me to that, pretty please?  Thank you :)

Finished:
A Dash of Fancy mini


X and O quilt


Red and white custom zig zag quilt


do.Good.Stitches November blocks


{Sew} Beautiful block for Lee



Still going:
Little Apples quilt - Thanks to some helpful input from some Twitter and Flickr friends, I finished up this adorable quilt top and I'm just waiting for the binding to come in to finish this one off.

Charmed Prints QAL - I have a sneaking suspicion that I'll wind up jumping ahead of this quilt-along, sorry, AnneMarie!  I'm pretty sure you guys know me by now.  When I get going on a quilt, I tend to not stop until the top is done!  I did manage to pick out some fabrics for this quilt, which will be heading to a baby boy who's due in December.  I'm really excited for his parents-to-be, and I think that excitement is positively going to carry over into this quilt!


Farmer's Wife QAL - I jumped back on the horse this week and made four blocks...but with the holidays coming up, I'm not expecting a whole lot of progress on this one for the rest of the year!


New this week:
Soft books for my niece and nephew - Loosely following my own tutorial, I've got some soft books to make for my niece and nephew for Christmas.  I'm still working on the themes for each book, but I think one is going to be a rhyming book...

Summer Sampler - I hung on to my Summer Sampler blocks so I could add to them and make this quilt a holiday gift for a friend, so now that I have all of my 4x5 blocks from last quarter, I can finally wrap up this quilt!  I need to make 3 more blocks, then put it all together.



PJ pants for the munchkin - I've never made PJ pants before...so if you've got a favorite tutorial, I'm all ears!  Despite the fact that we live in Florida, my munchkin still is obsessed with wearing flannel pants to bed, so I'm planning to make him some cute PJ pants for the holidays.  I picked up this cute little flannel print at Jo-Ann's yesterday.


Baking with Half Moon Modern - This lovely stack of fat quarters arrived this weekend and I'm looking forward to getting started on a new Bake Shop project with them real soon!

Thanks to some heavy-duty Sudafed and a waning cold, I climbed back up on the Farmer's Wife horse this weekend, which was both refreshing and infuriating all at the same time.  Let's start with the refreshing, shall we?

Block 38: Four Winds
This block has way too many pieced, but I'm really pretty happy with how it turned out.  I used a Joel Dewberry print from Modern Meadow, Lizzy House's pearl bracelet print in pond from Red Letter Day, a Kate Spain print from Central Park, and the green print from Erin McMorris's Weekends collection.   I love the little purple pinwheel in the center, that's what makes this block my favorite of the bunch.


Block 39: Friendship
This block was a breeze to put together, and I could definitely see myself making an entire quilt using a block like this.  I love how cheerful this block is.  The fabrics in this block come from Soul Blossoms, DS's Fairgrounds, Kumari Garden, and Metro Living.


And now for the infuriating...this block is #36, Flower Garden Path.  This block was terribly infuriating to put together.  In fact, I may just redo it at some point...just not today :)  There's just too much going on in the block with the Good Folks fabrics I used, and the dark DS print I used is actually supposed to meet in the center.  Oh well.


Block 40: Friendship Block
I used one of my favorite Good Folks prints in this block, which automatically makes me want to like this block.  That being said, though, I feel like it's a bit...loud.  It's hard to see the actual pattern of the block.  It just feels like the Sanctuary fabric and Good Folks fabric are competing with each other rather than working together.


For the record, I skipped block 35, Flower Basket, and block 37 Flower Pot.  I've decided that it's okay to skip the blocks I don't like, that it doesn't make a bad quilter.  It was kind of empowering to skip over those two blocks and keep on trucking.  So, having skipped those two, I now have a total of 38 blocks finished for this quilt.

Here's all my Farmer's Wife blocks all together, they're starting to look awfully pretty all together, don't you think?