Putting a Mini Charm Pack to Good Use / Beauties Pageant 313

 

 

What is it about small projects that sucks me in? Beguiled by their size, I never make just a single pouch or pincushion. It’s always 6 ... or 16. 

Such is the story behind my latest small obsession: thread catchers. I started by cutting out enough pieces for 15 catchers. It may seem like a lot, but what can I say? I have a lot of quilty friends in need of a new thread catcher, and these little projects pack a big scrap- and stash-busting punch. I am using mine to use up:

• Batting scraps
• Canvas scraps
• Essex linen scraps
• Mini charm packs

I have all of those components in spades, but I’m especially excited to put my mini charms to good use. I’ve acquired so many of them over the years—at QuiltCon, in quilty treat bags, and as thank-you gifts in online fabric orders. With the free pattern I’m following, each pack of 42 squares 2.5" x 2.5" can make panels for 3 thread catchers. [EDIT 11/21/2025: I think each pack has just 40 squares—contrary to the mini-charm listings at the Fat Quarter Shop, where I fact-checked my details. Sorry about that! Did into your scrap bin to make up the deficit!]

Interested in making your own? 

1. Download the free pattern here. (The blog that originally published it is now defunct, but Quilting Digest has a free PDF download.)

2. Open up your mini-charm pack and divide it into 3 groups of 14 squares 2.5" x 2.5". Choose 1 of the 3 groups to work with; set the rest aside. 

3. Cut each of 10 squares 2.5" x 2.5" into 2 rectangles 1.25" x 2.5" (for a total of 20 rectangles 1.25" x 2.5"). Trim each of the remaining 4 squares 2.5" x 2.5" down to 1 rectangle 1.5" x 2.5", discarding the scraps (for a total of 4 squares 1.5" x 2.5").

4. Following the instructions in the pattern, layer your canvas and batting to create 2 panels. If you don’t have leftover canvas on hand, think of other more-substantial scraps you might have used for home-dec or bag-making projects. They may do the trick!

5. Start to build the quilt-as-you-go patchwork with your mini-charm pieces. Begin the patchwork on each panel with 1 rectangle 1.5" x 2.5". Then sew 10 rectangles 1.25" x 2.5". End with 1 rectangle 1.5" x 2.5".

6. Continue to follow the instructions to complete the thread catcher.  

I veered from the instructions in minor ways: Because the Essex linen I was using shifted a bit, I found that I had to trim up my panels after quilting them. Also, for my first thread catcher, I finished my binding by machine. It wasn’t neat enough for my liking, though. After that, I used a contrasting 12 weight thread to finish the remaining catchers with visible chunky stitches. (If you want to give that a try, check out the tutorial here.)

I am a big fan of making simple projects en masse to give away as gifts. These beauties could even be billed as baskets and given to nonquilty people in your life. 

Do you set up sewing production lines to make gifts, too? I’d love to hear about the small gifts you conquer in the comments!

Follow Me On ...  

 

* * *

The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

On Gifting Quilts / Beauties Pageant 301

Over the years, people have inquired about whether I sell my finished quilts. As a policy, I don’t. I choose to gift them to friends and family instead, because it seems like the safer bet. I’d much rather pass my projects on to recipients I know and who are more likely to enjoy them and appreciate my work.

For years, then, the life cycle of my quilts was simple: I would make whatever brought me joy and then decided on a home for a project. This was a fine approach, but in retrospect, there were times when a gifted quilt seemed to fall flat. Maybe the design or palette wasn’t to the recipient’s liking? (That’s understandable, especially with my, at times, limited knowledge of the person’s taste.) Maybe she just wasn’t into having a handmade quilt in her decor? (No judgment! Such people do exist!) 

So I’ve honed my approach. Now I like to accumulate several finished quilts and then ask the recipient to pick her favorite. 

It works! Perhaps the person doesn’t get the sense that this quilt was specifically crafted for her in mind, but she leaves with a useful piece of art that, for whatever reason, speaks to her.

And that’s the process I followed recently to gift eight finished throw-size quilts to teachers who worked with my younger son through middle school.  

I have a friend who follows a similar process with family. She lays out her quilts at a family reunion, and everyone can pick a favorite or two. I conducted my process over email, contacting a few recipients with pictures of my finishes and asking them to pick a quilt before weeding out pictures of the claimed quilts and reaching out to the next small group.

It feels good to gift a quilt, and it feels even better knowing that I’ve increased the likelihood that the quilt will be used and loved by giving the recipient a say in the process.

Pictured here is one of the quilts I passed on to its forever home in the latest round of gifting. The design is Step Dance, from Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts, and it’s a prototype I made years ago, well before I had even decided to write the book.

This project is so old that I have to plumb the depths of my memory (and email folders!) to dig up the details. The fabric is Ava Kate by Carina Gardner for Riley Blake, and Narda Junda of Maz Q’s Sewing and Quilting Studio quilted it for me in a fabulous swirly pantograph. 

(You can see the version I sewed for the book, in a collection by Sweetwater, here.)

The black in this line caught my attention—I love a fabric collection with some unexpected black in it! The striped print was an especially effective addition to the quilt design, because it accentuates the idea of ascending stairs and helped me settle on a name for the pattern.

I was working with a fat quarter bundle for this project and used as much of it as I could, even piecing the leftover blue bits together to make a scrappy binding.

What do you do with your finished projects? Do you, too, pass them on to family and friends? Do you enjoy the thrill of selling them online or at craft fairs? Or do you fold them up and put them in a closet, a dilemma to solve another day? 

 

Follow Me On ...  

 

* * *

The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Ridiculously Easy YouTube Video / Beauties Pageant 296

The short version of the story I am about to tell is this: Eep! I made a YouTube video about my Ridiculously Easy Jelly Roll Quilt pattern. You can access it below ...

The longer version is that 10 years ago I posted a tutorial for my Ridiculously Easy Jelly Roll Quilt. Then 5 years ago, I converted that tutorial into a full-fledged pattern. This pattern has consistently been my most popular design, and its success is what propelled me into writing Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts.

It was time for a little sprucing, however. I added some more illustrations to the pattern, outfitted it with my new logo, and developed some bonus resources that anyone can access.

First off is the YouTube video. Every so often someone contacts me because they work better with videos than written patterns. This video does not tell you how to sew the pattern—to cut the fabric and sew the columns, you need to have the pattern in hand. It does, however, give a broad overview and discusses the issues of selecting fabric and sewing long columns together.  (Ridiculously Easy is a column-based pattern, not a block-based one.)

 

 

(Not going to lie ... It’s painful for me to watch that video! Please ignore the glare from my glasses and every instance of “um”!)

Forthcoming is a digital coloring page on PreQuilt. I already have some designs up on PreQuilt, and you can play with coloring them without having a PreQuilt subscription. Check them out here.

To celebrate this new-and-improved version, the PDF version of Ridiculously Easy Jelly Roll Quilt is just $10 through Thursday, June 19. Pick up the Ridiculously Easy Jelly Roll Quilt pattern in the From Bolt to Beauty store or Etsy shop!

 

Follow Me On ...  

 

* * *

The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Virtual Book Tour / Beauties Pageant 293

I spent the past few days at H+H Americas, a large fiber-arts tradeshow, and it was a blast. I got to meet quilters and shop owners and talk to them about Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts. The road to publishing a book is a long one, and reaching this point is very rewarding. Seeing people’s faces light up while encountering my designs for the first time never gets old.

Over the next two weeks, bloggers, designers, and social media mavens from around the world will be opening up a copy of Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts and sharing their thoughts. Some of them will be writing a review of the book. Others will be sewing up a block or two. And others still will be interviewing me about my creative process and book-writing journey. I can’t wait to read what they all have to say!

Many participants will be hosting a giveaway for the digital version of the book, so I encourage you to hit each stop!

Virtual Book Tour Schedule

• Sunday, May 11: Amy from During Quiet Time (@duringquiettime)
• Monday, May 12: Lilo from Trace Creek Quilting (@tracecreekquilting)
• Tuesday, May 13: Becca from Sugar Sand Quilt Co. (@sugarsandquilter)
• Wednesday, May 14: Yvonne from Quilting Jetgirl (@quiltingjetgirl)
• Thursday, May 15: Lynn from Create Whimsy (@createwhimsy)
• Friday, May 16: Mary from Mary Quilts Blog

* * *  

• Saturday, May 17: Raylee from Sunflower Stitcheries & Quilting (@sunflowerquilting)
• Sunday, May 18: Megan from Megan Collins Quilt Design (@megancollins_a)
• Monday, May 19: Deb from QuiltBlox (@deb.quiltblox)
• Tuesday, May 20: Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs (@meadowmistdesigns)
• Wednesday, May 21: Anne from Said With Love (@said_with_love)
• Thursday, May 22: Shannon from Shannon Fraser Designs (@shannonfraserdesigns)
• Friday, May 23: Concluding message from me here and on Instagram (@fromboltotbeauty)

Follow Me On ...  

 

* * *

The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Big and Bold, Cute and Sweet / Beauties Pageant 289

Hello, quilty friends!

I hope you’re having as great of a week as I am ... I had six to eight hours of glorious alone time in my house on Tuesday and Wednesday. That is a rare occurrence, and I cherished every quiet, uninterrupted minute. And then, at last night’s guild meeting, I won a fat quarter bundle of Melody Miller’s new Carousel collection. (Insert happy dance here!)

But what has really made life fun lately is getting to share projects from Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts. It is a thrill to see people’s excitement about my designs and hear which one they hope to sew first.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, this collection of 14 patterns spans the spectrum of project sizes. It also spans the spectrum of my design preferences. In the pages of the book, you’ll find everything from big and bold quilts to cute and sweet ones ...

Five-Star Experience

The collection’s cover girl, Five-Star Experience, is one of my favorites. The stars finish at 34 inches because, sometimes, big blocks are best! 

According to the book’s skill-level guide of one spool (for quicker, more straightforward sews) to three spools (for more fiddly sews), it comes in at one spool. I would take that assessment a step further and say that Five-Star Experience is the easiest project in the entire book.

I adore the colors in the sample I made, and that chartreuse binding is the perfect pop of color to frame those giant stars.

Jelly roll: Meadow Star by Alexia Marcelle Abegg for Ruby Star Society

Accent fabric: Moda Bella Solids in Black 

Background fabric: Speckled in Sweet Cream by Rashida Coleman Hale for Ruby Star Society

Pieced by Michelle Cain; quilted by Ophelia Chang

All the Xs 

Although Five-Star Experience features big blocks, the biggest quilt in the book is All the Xs. Here it is, below, pictured on a queen-size bed.

I consider this pattern my quilty mic drop because All the Xs requires just one jelly roll, a background fabric, and an accent fabric to produce a huge project. 

All the Xs is a little trickier than Five-Star Experience because of its size and the bias edges created when cutting the setting blocks, but its over-the-top Xs make the extra effort worth your while.

Jelly roll: Strawberry Lemonade by Sherri and Chelsi for Moda

Accent fabric: Moda Bella Solids in Dark Teal

Background fabric: Moda Bella Solids in Gray

Pieced by Michelle Cain; quilted by Ophelia Chang

Buoyant Hearts 

Buoyant Hearts was the first project I designed for Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts. Its fabric requirements are easily met in my stash, and there’s no background fabric—just a jelly roll, an outer heart fabric, and an inner heart fabric. 

I think the trick is to use a fabric line that has lots of different colors in it, and Fancy That Design House’s Songbook delivers on that front. In fact, I purchased a jelly roll of Songbook: A New Page, a follow-up to the original Songbook collection, to remake this pattern.

Jelly roll: Songbook by Fancy That Design House for Moda

Heart fabric: Moda Bella Solids in Off-White and Burgundy

Pieced by Michelle Cain; quilted by Ophelia Chang

I Heart Rainbows

Whereas Five-Star Experience may be the easiest pattern to sew from my collection, I Heart Rainbows was the easiest to design.

I have another version of this pattern planned, too. I think this time I’ll start with the backing fabric (for real!) and pull fabrics from my bin of solid 2.5-inch scraps. This will bust through one of my long-neglected fabric cuts for backings and chip away at those scraps.

Jelly roll: Rise and Shine by Melody Miller for Ruby Star Society 

Heart fabric: Moda Bella Solids in Pomegranate 

Background fabric: Moda Bella Solids in Off-White

You can order my book here!

And if you missed my previous posts about the quilts from Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts, you can read them here:

• That’s a Jelly Roll Quilt?
• Strip Sets for the Win!
• Two Pixelated Quilts 
• Three Scrappy Quilts
  

Follow Me On ...  

 

* * *

The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Strip Sets for the Win! / Beauties Pageant 286

This post features projects from my upcoming book Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts!

You’ve heard me waxing on about jelly rolls, and you may be wondering why I’m not compelled to work with a different precut, like layer cakes. I love a good layer cake, and a few of the patterns in my book can probably even be made with a layer cake’s 10-inch squares instead of a jelly roll’s 2.5-inch strips. But there’s one thing a jelly roll can do that no layer cake can, and that is produce big, time-saving strip sets.

You’ve likely made strips sets for other patterns. It’s the process of sewing jelly roll strips together along the long edges and then cutting the resulting set into smaller units to resew in different configurations. When I’m working with jelly rolls, I leverage the power of strip sets whenever I can—it’s simply a more efficient way to sew. 

Two quilts from my book that employ this technique are Butterfly Season and Myriad ...

Butterfly Season

Quilts take a long time to make, so I take advantage of every shortcut I can. In Butterfly Season, that means strip piecing the wings of each butterfly and strip-piecing the butterflies’ bodies. 

Plus, setting the time-saving benefits aside, there’s something super satisfying about sewing together these strips and then cutting crisp, pristine units from them.

Butterfly Season requires a full jelly roll and produces a twin-size quilt.

Jelly roll: Beautiful Day by Corey Yoder for Moda

Background fabric: Moda Bella Solids in Off-White

Batting: Warm and White

Finished size: 77.5" x 90.5"

Pieced by Michelle Cain; quilted by Ophelia Chang 

Myriad

Strip sets are the foundation of Myriad, a generously sized throw quilt that I sewed with a line of Kate Spain batiks. 

Again, relying on the strip-set technique here makes the quilt-making process go faster. It also produces less waste than if the pieces were sewn into rectangles and then cut into the necessary half-hexagons.

Myriad may look difficult, but in the end, it requires sewing columns of equilateral triangles together. Easy peasy!

Jelly roll: Confection Batiks by Kate Spain for Moda

Background fabric: Moda Bella Solids in White

Batting: Warm and White

Finished size: 64.5" x 83.75"

Pieced by Michelle Cain; quilted by Ophelia Chang 

You can order my book here!

 

* * *

Read more about Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts:

That’s a Jelly Roll Quilt?

Two Pixelated Quilts

Big and Bold, Cute and Sweet 

Three Scrappy Quilts 

Follow Me On ...  

 

* * *

The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

That's a Jelly Roll Quilt? / Beauties Pageant 285

This post features projects from my upcoming book Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts!

I love jelly rolls. Those beautiful spirals of 2.5-inch strips get me every time. Bundled together, they’re just the right amount of fabric—often enough for one quilt, maybe one quilt and a small project. Plus, they’re available at a good price point, and they’re super stashable.

As I set out to design a collection of jelly roll patterns, I knew I had to do something different. I wanted to push the envelope with what I could create with 2.5-inch strips, offering quilters truly unique options for using their precuts. I think I succeeded! In fact, the collection of designs I created is so different from others on the market that I gave it the name Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts.  

Over the next month and a half, I’ll show you all 14 of the samples from the book. I hope doing so will have you reaching for the jelly rolls in your own stash and inspire you to make something beautiful with them.
 
Some of the patterns keep those long strips as long strips in the finished quilt top. Others sew the strips together lengthwise and then cut them into smaller units, like rectangles or half-hexies, to resew. Still others strive to use as many of the square inches each 2.5-inch strip offers as possible, and those are the quilts I’ll highlight today. I think you’ll agree that they live up to the title Not-Your Typical Jelly Roll Quilts.

Tag Sale Floral

The patterns in my book span the spectrum from wall hangings and runners to bed-size quilts. I wanted people to be able to pick up the book and find something that suited the fabric they have on hand. Because sometime you might have an unopened jelly roll to sew with, and other times you may have part of a roll leftover after sewing something else.

Consider Tag Sale Floral. It’s one of those projects that doesn’t require a full roll. I’d go one step further and say you don’t need a jelly roll at all. If you enjoy assembling fabric pulls on your own, you could dive into your stash and cut the 22 width-of-fabric strips this pattern requires. 

The result is a small quilt, perfect for draping over a table or hanging on the wall.

Photo copyright © 2025 by C&T Publishing

Jelly roll: Lady Bird by Crystal Manning for Moda

Background fabric: Moda Bella Solids in Porcelain

Batting: Warm and White

Finished size: 43.5" x 43.5"

Pieced and quilted by Michelle Cain

Step Dance 

I consider myself a modern-traditional gal, and I enjoy putting a new spin on the classics. Step Dance is my tribute to an Irish chain quilt. Like my Irish Twist, this pattern focuses on the space between the chains. I love how it plays with directionality, placing some of the jelly roll pieces horizontally and others vertically. I think it’s a pattern that can suit modern fabric collections as well as more traditional lines.

Styled photography by Melanie Zacek; photo copyright © 2025 by C&T Publishing

Jelly roll: Vintage by Sweetwater for Moda

Background fabric: Moda Bella Solids in Porcelain

Batting: Warm and White

Finished size: 50.5" x 62.5"

Pieced by Michelle Cain; quilted by Ophelia Chang

Lucky Medallion

I don’t think anyone would look at Lucky Medallion and guess it’s a jelly roll quilt, but every bit of it  can be sewn with 2.5-inch width-of-fabric strips. The result is a generous throw. This pattern requires more than the 40 strips found in standard jelly rolls, but I go into detail how to augment your strips with selections from your stash. I also imagine going all-out scrappy with this design, raiding the greens in my stash for all those four-leaf clovers and the yellows for the stars. Maybe there’s another Lucky Medallion in my future!

Photo copyright © 2025 by C&T Publishing

 Jelly roll: Country Rose by Lella Boutique for Moda

Background fabric: Moda Bella Solids in Off-White

Batting: Warm and White

Finished size: 80.5" x 80.5"

Pieced by Michelle Cain; quilted by Ophelia Chang

You can order my book here!

* * *

Read more about Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts:

Strip Sets for the Win!

Two Pixelated Quilts

Big and Bold, Cute and Sweet 

Three Scrappy Quilts 

Follow Me On ...  

 

* * *

The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Rainbows, Butterflies, and Kitties / Beauties Pageant 283

One of the joys of attending QuiltCon is seeing the practical handmade items other conference goers are wearing or carrying and having your own garment and bag projects appreciated by other sewists.

The past few years I’ve attended QuiltCon toting my Cargo Duffel bag (pictured below in early Amy Butler fabrics) and two infinity scarves (with Anna Maria lawns). The bag is roomy enough to carry all the necessities around the show, and the scarves are a great layer to add when the convention center gets chilly.

This year is was time for something new, so I’m sewing an All the Things Tote by Knot and Thread with blocks from my upcoming book release. The instructions in my book use jelly roll strips to create sizable block. Although the All the Things Tote is a generous 18 inches long and 11 inches tall, I still had to cut all the block dimensions in half to make them fit. Here’s how things are looking so far ...

I have a rainbow and butterfly ...

 

The sweetest kitty and flower ...

 

And a horseshoe? Yes, one of the projects in the book, named Lucky Medallion, is a medallion quilt that features a variety of good luck charms. The center of that quilt is this horseshoe.

I have less than a week to wrap this up, and I’m starting to sweat it! If you’ll be at QuiltCon, be on the lookout for me and my bag—I’d love to meet you in person! In fact, I’ll be talking about my book, showing off my bag blocks, and demoing how I use PreQuilt to visualize my designs in different color palettes. Head to the PreQuilt booth (#229) on Friday, February 21 at 11 a.m. to get in on the action. : )

Follow Me On ...  

 

* * *

The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter