What to Do with a Mini-Charm Pack

I am a lover of precuts—jelly rolls, charm packs, and layer cakes all have their place in my stash and in my heart. I like having a cross-section of certain fabric collections, and buying precuts is less expensive than investing in fat quarters or yardage of an entire line.

Each kind of precut has its advantages and disadvantages, but I think mini-charm packs—sets of 2.5-inch squares—are the least practical. There’s only so much you can do with those tiny pieces of fabric. When I received a mini-charm pack of Kate Spain’s Voyage at my guild’s fall retreat, courtesy of Moda Fabrics, I knew I would have to put those squares to good use right away, lest they wither away unused in my stash, so I challenged the other retreat-goers to sew something with their packs and present their creations at the December guild meeting.

I decided to make an En Pointe Bag, from Kairle Oak’s tutorial on Moda Bake Shop, which proved to be a cute bag and enjoyable sew.

The colors in Voyage are gorgeous!

Everything for this project came from my stash, including the Essex Linen exterior, Lotta Jansdotter lining, and Denyse Schmidt binding.

The interior of the En Pointe Bag features a single pocket.

A binding along the top gives the bag a clean finish. No turning required!

Note to my future self: If you make this pattern again, remember you veered from the instructions a bit. That is, you interfaced the patchwork panel, pressing it lightly with your iron just enough that the interfacing would fuse. This technique worked well and gave the final project the body you were looking for!

The bag is interfaced, which gives it great structure.

The other participants in the challenge came up with different project ideas. One person made a reversible bracelet. Another designed some baskets. Others made everything from potholders to mini-quilts. It was fun to see how we each took the same little bundle of squares in our own direction.

If you are the owner of an unused mini-charm pack, I ventured into the From Bolt to Beauty archives to find other projects you could tackle with your precuts.

Earlier this year, I made ornaments from a mini-charm pack of Basic Grey’s Juniper Berry ...

And back in 2015, I followed a free pattern from the Fat Quarter Shop to make this runner. (The instructions call for mini-charm packs, but you need so many of them that cutting up a charm pack will yield all the printed squares you need for the runner size. I used scraps for my version.)

Do you have other recommendations for using up a mini-charm pack? It’s only a matter of time before I have another in my stash!

Linking up to Let’s Bee Social and Finish It Up Friday ...