Easy Charm Square Baby Quilt Tutorial
Charm Square Baby Quilt Tutorial
Here are a couple fast and easy charm square baby quilts that are quick to make and look beautiful finished. Use your favorite charm packs or cut your charm squares from fat quarters. You’ll love how much time using precuts will save you!
Made with 80 charms, the first quilt is sewn in a simple patchwork block pattern. The second quilt uses 85 charms and the same fabric yet doesn’t look the same at all. The simple technique of offsetting the blocks makes the difference. The change in the block alignment across the quilt top creates a lovely design.
This tutorial is for the offset block quilt which is a perfect project for beginning quilters. If you are an experienced quilter, you can finish one in less than a day thanks to the piecing and assembly techniques you’ll learn here! Find yourself some beautiful fabric and let’s start quilting!
Download Your FREE Patterns for both of these quilts!
How to make a Charm Square Quilt
Choose Your Fabrics
Begin by choosing two of your favorite charm packs or a minimum of seven fat quarters. See this tutorial to learn how to cut fat quarters into charm squares if you haven’t done that before. You may also download these free printable cutting templates for future reference.
This quilt is made with Hoffman Fabrics Paradise Batik Fat Quarters. If using other fabrics, choose a combination of focal fabrics incorporating a pleasing group of assorted colors. Vary the print or graphic sizes so there are some small images mixed with larger ones in different fabrics. Then mix with some low volume or background prints for added contrast. Once your color scheme is selected begin cutting your 5-inch squares.
This quilt is 8 blocks x 10 blocks plus the offset blocks and finishes at 38” x 48”. You will need a minimum of eight fat quarters. I used 14 different fat quarters for my version in order to have more fabric variety.
Download the FREE Fat Quarter Cutting PDF Templates
The FREE Printable Fat Quarter Cutting Chart PDF Download includes 4 pages of fat Quarter cutting layouts and fabric guides to help you determine the best way to cut your own charm squares.
Alternatively, this quilt may be made with 2 charm packs. The quilt will be 8 blocks x 9 blocks plus the offset blocks and finishes at 38” x 42”.
How to Offset Your Charm Squares
The fast & easy charm square quilting technique in this tutorial eliminates matching any seams! That makes finishing a quilt so much quicker! Such an easy assembly makes this a wonderful learning quilt for beginners. For more experienced quilter, it’s an amazingly fast finish!
In order to offset you blocks from row to row, space the seams at different intervals. That means that every other row needs to begin and end with a different size block. By using a half size block at each end, the seams of these rows will fall in the center of the blocks above.
This quilt requires 10 blocks cut to 3” x 5” that will offset the rows. This eliminates matching seams by changing how the blocks line up.
Assemble Your Quilt
The first row will have eight 5-inch blocks. The second row will begin and end with offset blocks with seven 5-inch blocks in between. Each row assembly continues to alternate in this manner. Chainstitch the rows in order to keep each row aligned properly. Then when the rows are sewn together, the blocks are offset and there are NO MATCHING SEAMS! What an incredible time-saving technique, and you can use it on many different patchwork blocks.
When you’re ready to begin sewing, mix up the various fabric colors into two or three different piles. As you’re chainstitching rows, choose fabrics without duplicating them side by side. Sew into a random pattern. Once the rows are sewn, press the seam allowances all in the same direction.
What makes this such a fast & easy quilt is that there are no nesting seam allowances! Simply sew the rows together with all the block seam allowances in one direction. Then press the row seam allowances all in one direction as well. How is that for a simple and fast finish!
Give this Fast & Easy Charm Square Quilt Pattern a Try Today!
This easy charm square quilt will inspire you to use all your fat quarter stash fabrics. Start by cutting them into 5-inch squares and you’ll have a pile of precuts ready to sew. Of if you collect charm packs, use multiple packs for any size quilt you want! This is an easy quilt pattern perfect for beginners.
This is also a great gift option if you have lots of fabric stashed that you need to use. Now you can make multiple, easy quilts without buying more fabric. Actually, you’re making room for new fabric! So let’s get quilting!
Love your patterns and fabrics that you use, especially your patterns as they’re easy and yet elegant. Thanks!
That’s such a beautiful compliment, Carolyn! Thank you!! So glad to have you following along. Happy Quilting,
Lea Louise