Sometimes ads come up on my Facebook news feed that catch my attention.   That happened recently with some fabrics. The offer was for pack of  5″ charm square, 102 pieces in all.  The colors looked so nice and the price was excellent.  So, I purchased a set.  I had no idea what I was going to make with them, and I certainly didn’t need any more fabric.  But, they were just too pretty to pass up.

Once they arrived, I started thinking about the many quilt patterns that I want to try. Since the pack was small 5″ squares, I knew that I couldn’t do anything really fancy with them.  So, I decided to try some “split block” ideas.

Split block techniques involve sewing squares of fabric together, either jelly rolls, 5″ charms or other sizes, and then cutting them along different lines and/or angles to make new blocks.

The first idea I tried was an Interrupted Four Patch.  This pattern involves sewing the charm squares alternately with a background fabric. 

The sewn piece is then cut into strips 1/3 and 2/3 of the  size of the blocks. A contrasting fabric strip is then sewn between each horizontally cut strip. This is repeated with vertical strips, borders added and the quilting completed.

The next idea I tried was the “Twister”. This pattern also involved sewing the charm squares together alternating with a background fabric.

Then the sewn piece is cut at an angle with a template, twisted to make pinwheels, and sewn together.

There are templates in a variety of sizes available for this quilt pattern. But, I really don’t need more templates, so I just drew temporary lines on my 4″ square template and used that.

For this quilt, I did not have enough fabric to make as many pinwheels as I needed.  So, I decided to add pinwheels with quilting.  Kinda a fun way to continue the pattern to a larger size.

Some interesting blocks to try in the future:

• Disappearing four patch
• Disappearing nine path
• Fence Rail