Smash Your Precut Stash!: 13 Quilts Using Your Jelly Rolls, Charm Squares & Fat Quarters with Yardage

By Kate Carlson Colleran and Elizabeth Veit Balderrama

Have you ever bought the perfect stack of fat quarters, only to see that same bundle decorating your shelf two years later? Give stashed fabrics new life with 13 quilt patterns to make the most of your precut collection! Kate Carlson Colleran and Elizabeth Veit Balderrama, both of Seams Like a Dream Quilt Designs, show you the basics of how to quilt from your stash, with a special focus on color, print, and scale. More than a dozen vibrant and versatile quilt patterns are tailored to precut fabric strips, squares, and fat quarters. Learn how to add additional yardage, mix and match different fabric lines, and design a stunning quilt from fabric you already have on hand.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C&T Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781617450105

Kate Carlson Colleran

Kate Carlson Colleran began quilting in 1978. A nurse, Kate met Elizabeth when they worked together at a nursing home, and they started a pattern business together in 2003. Kate lives in Centennial, Colorado, with her husband, Jim, and her cat, Lily.

Book preview

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Let’s Mix It Up!

The Stash

As quilters, we all have a stash. We love our fabric! The big question is, Why don’t we use our stash? Well, there are as many reasons for that as there are quilters. But let’s explore a few of the common reasons.

1. You bought it a while ago and it just no longer floats your boat. Quilters are notoriously frugal—some of us even turn scraps into quilts! But that shelf of unwanted fabrics can really stymie our creativity. Looking at things like that makes us feel guilty because we bought it and now we don’t want to use it!

So, do something!

One idea would be to turn the fabric into a charity quilt—we have a couple of great patterns in the book that are not hard to do—why not use Wayne’s Quilt or Dance Party or and create a couple of quick charity quilts that anyone would adore sleeping under? Add a couple of extra borders to make the quilt bed size and use any extra fabric for the backing. (See Making Your Quilt Bigger by Adding Borders.)

2. You love it and just can’t bear to cut it up. We get that. Some people collect stamps, other people collect coins, and quilters collect fabric. Enjoy it, pet it—just don’t hide it away and forget about it! You could display it on a shelf (not a shelf that gets direct sunlight of course) and just refold it every few months to prevent fade lines and permanent creases. But that way, you can see it, enjoy it, and get inspired by it!

3. You love it, you want to use it, but you don’t know what to do with it! When you bought it, you were sure you were going to create something amazing, but something else came up and now you don’t know what to do.

That’s where we come in. Let’s chat about how to start using those beautiful jelly rolls, charm packs, and fat quarter bundles that we have collected over the years and turn them into great quilts!

Color Theory—Sort Of

A little dash of this, a little pinch of that ... just like any good recipe, it is all in the mix!

Many quilters like kits. Why? They don’t have to worry about choosing prints or colors—it is all done for them. Mixing colors and fabrics is scary for many people. Many quilters like using fabrics from the same line, and why not? The fabric companies have made it so easy for us. With a mix of small- and large-scale prints and blenders, we know the fabrics will all match perfectly, so it is hard to pass up.

Here’s the problem: What if the coordinating fabric is long gone? Not to worry! A print from a new line today can coordinate with a charm pack of yesterday. Mixing fabrics and color can be really fun. First, learn a little about your own connection to color—we are all different. Just as we all like different foods, we all respond differently to color. Maybe you would look at a quilt of all neutrals and think, boring! Or perhaps you would see the quilt as lovely and soothing. Color is often the first thing we see as quilters, and it can determine whether we buy a pattern, a book, or a fabric. Most of us have a favorite color; look at your fabric stash or your wardrobe. Sometimes the key to a successful quilt is mixing your favorite colors with something a little outside your regular go-to palette to add that extra something to your quilt!

Below are a few things you need to know about color theory to help you mix and match with the best of them.

First, be open to taking small steps outside your color comfort zone. Sometimes the fabric you would not normally pick is just the one to give your quilt the spark it needs. Fabrics that are too matchy matchy can kill a design. Think coordinate and complement, not match. Sometimes, when we pick a shade that is not exactly a match to another fabric in the quilt, it creates more interest and movement. In Wayne’s Quilt, two of the colors we picked were not in the other fabrics at all!

Second, just like a tag sale, one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. Go with your gut; remember, everyone reacts differently to color. However, just because you love a fabric doesn’t mean it will work in your quilt! If it doesn’t, let it go! Put the fabric down and walk away. Or grab some, but use it for another project like My Favorite Fat Quarter Runner! You might try to make a fabric work in a project because it is just so darned cute, but if it doesn’t work, you may be unhappy with the final result.

The Elements of Color Theory

Having a bit of understanding about the color elements that might make or break a design is helpful when mixing fabrics.

Value

Many people say that color gets all the credit and value does all the work. So what is value? It is the lightness or the darkness of a color. Value is fluid; the same color might seem light next to a black fabric but dark next to a yellow one. Value provides contrast and allows us to see the design. Look at Wayne’s Quilt. It shows how a mix of light, medium, and dark values provides the contrast needed for the design to stand out.

Temperature

Temperature is the warmness or coolness of a color. Warm colors are the ones we would associate with the sun, fire, heat, and excitement! In contrast, cool colors are viewed as more soothing, such as the colors of water or the forest. Understanding the temperature of a fabric is important because warm colors tend to pop out at you and cool colors will recede into the design. And a warm color will recede a little if it is next to an even warmer one! So if you put a yellow or bright orange in a patch, know that it is going to stand out!

Intensity

We already mentioned that we all gravitate to our favorite colors. Those colors might also be different in intensity. Let’s say that both you and your girlfriend love blue, but she likes the bright blues of cobalt and primary blue and you prefer the muted shades of Civil War