Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Jo Charms All Swapped and Heading to Their New Homes

Last week I was swimming in Jo Morton charm squares. This is a sampling of the 5" squares that came in during our Jo Morton charm swap. We had seven participants who sent in 61 sets of charms, so I swapped out a total of 488 charms. Everyone was mindful to send a variety of newer and older fabrics, so we had very few duplicate fabrics come in ~ which was amazing! Some have asked what we are doing with the charms, well...

Karen of Quiltsalot blog is making a traditional apple core quilt using the stamp from Cindy Blackburg to mark her fabrics (this picture is on Karen's blog of what she intends to do). Several of the gals in our shop's Jo Morton group indicated that they would like to make this quilt too. Instructions can be found in Jo's Vintage Journey book, and you can get the stamp and pattern from Cindy Blackburg's website. You can also find similar stamps for marking your fabric templates from Kate Ackley on her website ByKate. I can see that there will be enough fabric left from each charm to make up a nice piano key border for some little quilt too.

This is what I've done with some of my charm squares so far. I was inspired from Rita's quilt on Sunday to make a couple more Dear Jane blocks for my little collection. This is C-9 & B-13 made with Jo charm squares from our swap. 5" pieces are great for Dear Jane size blocks. Don't scrutinize the workmanship too carefully, because they are small and portable, I make most of my DJ blocks on the fly and not under "perfect" lighting and circumstances ~ maybe that will give them a more authentic appearance :) (looking on the bright side).

...And I'm making blocks for a quilt in the Nickel Quilts book by Pat Speth & Charlene Thode called Buffalo Ridge. I've joined in a block swap with two of my friends so we are each making three of each block and we'll trade them ~ this is a sneak peek at one of my blocks. A lot of my Jo charms will go into this quilt.

I mailed off the charms to the out of state ladies on October 28th, so they should be arriving, and the local girls can pick up their swaps anytime from the shop :) Let me know what you all do with charm squares!

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

6 comments:

QuilterMary said...

Great Buffalo Ridge block! I've got 2 sets done. Can't wait to do the swap.

Amy R said...

Dawn - My blocks arrived last week! Thanks so much for allowing me to participate! Amy, in South Lyon, MI

Messy Karen said...

the fabrics are all so pretty. and i do like your Buffalo Ridge block.

Karen said...

I enjoyed doing the block swap of Jo Morton charms with you and those that participated! Your Dear Jane blocks are cute! What a fantastic idea, to use a pattern from the Nickel Quilt book!! Your block looks wonderful!

Sue said...

Hi girls,

I came to your blog via Liz @ http://frogquilter.blogspot.com. I was so happy to see the apple core stamp. We have been watching re-runs of Little House On The Prairie and the new season we've just started shows the girls with a new quilt on the bed. I didn't know what the pattern was called, but admired it each time I saw it. Now I know . . . it's the Apple Core. Thank you so much for answering my question and thanks so much for sharing.
Regards, Sue

Dawn said...

Sue ~ Welcome! So glad you found the answer to your question :)