Quilt 20: Christmas Charm Squares

On the same trip (to Florida) when I bought the tutty fruity charm squares, I also fell head over heals for a package of Christmas charm squares.  Well, OK... TWO packets.  So, having no self-control whatsoever, and looking at a price that was irresistable (US fabric prices are way WAY lower than those here in Australia), I caved in.  Bought 2 packages.

After the intense fun of coming up with the tutty fruity projects - plus wanting to have several projects ready to start hand-quilting, I decided to dive on in and do something with those Christmas charm squares.

2 packages of 72 prints... well... that's a lot of squares.  So I came up with a design for a queen-sized bedspread:

Not bad, eh?

140 charm squares (10 columns, 14 rows).  The lattice includes 164 little gold corner squares and 304 light-gold rectangles. Then I'll surround them with a band of the light-gold, then red, then green, and finally bind with a repeat of the red.  I'm utterly thrilled with this design.

Yeah... we're looking at over 600 individual pieces just for the center, not counting the 3 solid borders and binding. WOW!

I dove in fast and got the squares set up pretty fast.  At first I just joined them in strips, taking care to change the colours; I don't want all the red in one place, don't want 2 of the exact same print side by side.

It was actually easier than I thought it would be (hm... am I getting better at this?  Maybe...)

And here are the 14 rows, all ready to be joined by the intermediate lattice strips:

WeeeeeeEEEeee!  I'm on a total tear here - whipping up quilt tops as fast as you can blink.