One pattern - 3 ways

I bet I’m not alone in this, but I really love working with scraps – maybe I should start a blog about it!

One of the sizes I cut from leftover fabric is 5"x5" charm squares, so I’ve been hunting for a pattern. I found a free Moda pattern called Love that I want to try out. I was thinking of using the same pattern with 1) a store-bought charm pack, 2) my scrap charm squares using coordinated colours and 3) scrappy random prints.

Designer Charm Pack - Moda's Kitty Corn by Urban Chiks

At BlueCat Studio, we're all about cats and Halloween, so Kitty Corn felt like a perfect choice with its black cats, spiders, a full moon, and a pumpkin. Throw in a retro-inspired colour palette featuring fun florals, candy corn, polka dots and plaids, and you've got a great Halloween vibe.

It was a bit frustrating that the main fabrics (cats and flowers) came in three colour options, but after some creative thinking and a little help from our curious Cleo, I figured out the layout.

my first layout idea

I used unbleached calico for the background, followed the straightforward cutting instructions, and got started on my HST (half square triangles). Once I pressed and trimmed the HST, I joined the blocks together, creating a lovely square topper. But I still had 12 charm squares left and wanted a bigger quilt, so I added a 2 1/2" strip of calico along with a border made of 2 1/2" x 5" pieces of calico and 8 of the leftover charm squares.

adding the border to the top and bottom

I grabbed a simple cream cotton from my stash for the backing and loaded it up with the wadding and topper onto the longarm. Now, I needed to figure out how to quilt it. My options were a side-to-side pantograph pattern, an all-over free motion filler, or a structured free motion design. I went with the structured design since there were so many separate areas to fill. After doodling a bit in my book, I came up with a mix of spider webs, ghosts, skulls, moons, and stars. Once I started quilting, I changed my mind about one section and added some straight echo lines with doodled bats instead. To wrap up the quilt, I ordered more of the green polka dot from the Kitty Corn collection and added a simple binding, machine-sewing it on the front and hand-sewing it on the back.

ghosts and skulls

Coordinated Charm Squares - BlueCats Stash

For my second quilt, I used colour coordinated scrap charm squares. I selected bright and lively prints for my collection of scrap squares and followed the same method to sew the quilt topper. I backed it with the same simple cream cotton as before and quilted it using rulers to create a geometric design, and then finishing it off with a flange binding in dark purple and cream.

Un-coordinated Scrappy Prints - BlueCats stash

The final quilt was created using a mix of light and dark print fabrics, and due to the lack of uniformity in the blocks, I opted for a bold floral print for the backing (as well as using it up from my stash). I quilted it using a pantograph design and completed the piece with a thin binding.

Pantograph - Field of Flowers by Keryn Emmerson (Golden Threads)

Used in all quilts Wadding - Soft & Bright Wadding

Quilting thread - top - glide 40wt - Bone and Linen

All three quilts are done, creating them was an enjoyable journey, and I gained valuable insights into what works well and what doesn’t when working with uncoordinated scraps.

I also discovered that I like quilting with bold floral prints.

Which one is your favourite?

Thank you for stopping by.

Sarah x