Sort these charms by how dark they are, not by the pictures on them.
Holly is a checkerboard of 5 inch charm squares, thirteen across and sixteen down, finishing at 58 1/2 by 72 inches. It is built from one collection instead of two. Snowman and Snowflake has twelve prints, and every one of them is some shade of winter blue, so the two halves of the board cannot come from color. They come from value.
Six of the twelve are pale and six are deeper. Put the pale ones on one square of the board and the deeper ones on the other, and a pattern appears that none of the twelve has on its own. The snowmen and the snowflakes are charming up close, but at the far side of the room they are not what the quilt is doing.
Two of the prints sit close to the middle, and it does not matter which pile you put them in. The quilt needs the two piles to be roughly right, not exactly right, and the pattern has a page that shows all twelve in value order with the split marked so you do not have to guess.
Download the Holly pattern
Eleven pages, free to print, use and teach from. The sorting sheet with all twelve prints in value order, the fabric table for five sizes, chain piecing a row, pressing so the seams nest, the layout, and the arithmetic for a size of your own.
Download the free Holly quilt pattern PDF
The fabric for this quilt is put together as the precut-friendly kit, counted for this pattern.
Everything you need to make this quilt
What you need
One pack of 240 squares covers the throw. It holds 20 of every print, which divides evenly into the two piles, and the quilt takes 104 from each with squares to spare. The baby size takes a pack of 120 instead. Backing and batting are 66 1/2 by 80 inches, which is 2 1/4 yards of 108 inch wide fabric.
Some prints come round twice in a row, and that is fine
There are six prints in each pile and a row of thirteen holds seven squares from one of them, so in every size except the baby a print will appear twice in the same row. Put the two copies at opposite ends rather than near each other and nobody will ever count them. In the baby size each row can carry one of every print.
Half close your eyes
Lay all twelve prints out, walk to the far side of the room and half close your eyes. The snowmen disappear and what is left is six pale squares and six deeper ones. That is the whole quilt, and it is also how you would choose two piles from fabric you already own. A collection of twelve prints that are all the same depth, however pretty, will not make this one.
Juniper is the same quilt built from two collections, if you want it brighter. More in our free quilt patterns.
