Sew Me Time

Had some charm packs from Shop Hop 2012....  Decided finally to jump in, take them out of their pretty little paper sleeves and make something fun out of them.  

Disappearing Nine Patch

(A wonderfully fun and easy technique!) 

Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Company has this tutorial on her YouTube Channel....  and that is where I got the inspiration and encouragement to try one for myself.  If you have not seen any of her tutorials - go and check her out! She is awesome! 

She suggests that you use two charm packs.  I only had one, so I went to the fabric shelf and pulled out some more fabric and cut up 5 inch squares to go with the charm pack.  (Wish I could tell you the name of this charm pack - but I threw away the name yesterday and the trash already picked up!)  They are pretty fall colors! 

Take some time and lay out your blocks into nine patches.  I took Jenny's advice and picked one fabric to be the center patch.... See that pretty orange fabric in the center...

Now sew your Nine Patch Blocks.

With one charm pack and some of my own fabric, I made six Nine Patch Blocks.....  There is one (the top left) that I did not pay attention to when I was sewing and got too many dark fabrics together.... but the good thing is that in this design - that is not really a mistake!  

Now after all that sewing.... guess what???  You cut the Nine Patch Blocks!  Yes, that is right.  You cut it right down the middle and then you turn it 45 degrees and cut it right down the middle again!  

 As you can see, all of my orange center blocks of the Nine Patch are cut into four little blocks.....  how cute!  

There are many, many, many ways you can lay out the little blocks - but I took Jenny's suggestion and made sure no seams were touching....  isn't this a fun design?  

Now all I need to do is stop "auditioning" borders and get this cute little darling sewn together....  

Hopefully tomorrow I will have the top finished.  

Using pre-cuts and only cutting a few squares... I was able to get to this point in about 3-4 hours...

(Wish I remembered how many "extra squares" I cut.  I will count next time....)

This is a great quilt top for beginners like me, to keep working on piecing skills (and cutting if you do not use pre-cuts).  Also, since they go together so fast, we can make quite a few of these to practice quilting and binding!!!  

I love my little Sew Me Time.