Charm School--18 Quilts from 5" Squares: A Beginner's Guide

by Joel Hill

Overview

Put charm squares to the test with 18 quilts using precut 5" x 5" squares. Start with fresh, beginner-friendly patterns and build your skills to sew snowballs, stars, flying geese, and more. Using precuts from your stash or your own charms cut from scraps or yardage, you’ll learn tips to take the guesswork out of piecing. Modern and traditional quilters alike will fall in love with these quick, clever, and clean designs!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781617452710
Publisher:	C & T Publishing
Publication date:	03/01/2017
Pages:	128
Sales rank:	166,014
Product dimensions:	7.90(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Vanessa Goertzen has been a pattern designer since 2010, when she started her quilting blog and pattern shop, Lella Boutique. Her work has been published in American Patchwork & Quilting, McCall's Quilting, and McCall's Quick Quilts.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Selecting the Fabric
Tools & Supplies
Before You Begin
Keeping it Square
Modern Basic
Chandelier
Lickety-Split
Rectangle Blocks
Railroad Crossing
Cat's Cradle
Snowfall
Easy Corner Triangles
Scrap-Happy
Up Ahead
Solar Eclipse
Madame Butterfly
Half-Square Triangles
Rock Star
First Crush
Charm Bracelet
Hoodwink
Quarter-Square Triangles
Somersault
Love Letter
Wonky Talk
Tipsy
Lunchbox
Finishing the Quilt
About the Author

Editorial Reviews

02/06/2017
Shuck the heels and peel the hose: this is not your grandmother’s charm school. Goertzen’s title pun springs from “charm packs,” a stack of 5” x 5” fabric squares used for quilting. Her “school” concerns quick and easy piecing for beginners and more experienced quilters. Goertzen, a pattern designer and founder of Lella Boutique, advises quilters to exploit charm packs, fat quarters (stacks of quarter-yard material), and scraps, and to customize charm packs. She focuses on the basics of beginning (selecting fabric, supplying tools, learning the language) over finishing touches (batting and basting). Mostly, she concentrates on the specifics of pattern assembly, organizing her patterns and projects by geometry: square, rectangle, corner triangles, half-square triangles, and quarter-square triangles. Her projects are accretive, and beginners can work up from the simple squares to the final chapter. Each project comes with a paragraph from Goertzen’s life and includes tips and measurements, photographs, and illustrations, all encouraging and playful. Goertzen invites her charm school pupils “to work in pajamas or jeans!” Color photos. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Use precut 5" squares to make 18 easy projects by author Vanessa Goertzen. You'll learn how to transform the simple squares into Snowballs, Stars, Flying Geese, and more. This book, featuring both traditional and modern patterns, is a must-have for precut collectors.

August 2017 American Patchwork & Quilting

Using 5 x 5 inch squares known as charm packs, this book brings you 18 fab designs to quilt. Each design is beginner friendly. You can buy pre-cuts or cut your own squares. You can alter squares too. Fantastic blocks bridge the gap between traditional piecing and modern designs. Contents include fabric selection, tools, supplies and before you begin plus finishing at the end of the book. The designs include blocks made with squares, rectangles, easy corner triangles, half-square triangles, quarter square triangles and wonky designs. For each design you’ll see materials, cutting, construction with diagrams and good photos. An excellent way to begin quilting or to use charm packs.

4/19/2017 yarnsandfabrics.co.uk

This book will certainly appeal to any scrap lover! You can use precuts or 'shop' your stash to create your own collection of five inch blocks—it is a revelation to see the variety of patterns than can be made from this starting point. The quilts progress to more complex designs, but every step of the way there are pretty photos, diagrams and instructions. It truly is a book you would want to give a beginner, but the quilts are so lovely that even more experienced quilters will want to make them. The designs are show in modern fabrics but would work equally well with a more traditional colour palette.

180 Down Under Quilts

02/15/2017
A charm square, a popular fabric precut, is a five-inch square that can be used on its own or subcut into a variety of shapes and sizes. Quilt and fabric designer Goertzen's lively collection explores the versatility of charm squares. She begins with quilts that use these squares with little or minimal subcutting, then demonstrates how to use them as rectangular and triangular components. The style is best described as "modern traditional," with the majority of the quilts applying a standard, symmetrical grid layout. Pieced as presented, the majority of the quilts are throw-size, but the simple block construction makes the quilts easy to resize. VERDICT These cheery quilts demonstrate the versatility of charm squares and will inspire quilters to make use of these popular precuts.

Library Journal