Chandelier Precut-Friendly Kit | Blossom Breeze | Confident Beginner | 50" x 60"

What a precut-friendly kit is

A precut-friendly kit is built around precuts, fabric already cut to standard sizes, counted for one specific quilt. You don't choose fabrics or work out yardage, and most of the cutting is done. It isn't a fully precut kit, though: the pattern still has its own cuts. In Chandelier the small squares are cut from the ends of the mini strips.

What's included

• 1 pack of Blossom Breeze 5" squares, for the large squares in the blocks.
• 1 pack of Blossom Breeze 2.5" x 10" mini strips, for the small squares, cut from each end of a strip. The two packs carry the same forty prints.
• A link to the free Chandelier pattern, on our pattern page.

What's not included

• Any fabric the pattern lists beyond the two packs, so check its fabric list before you start.
• Backing.
• Batting.
• Thread.

The quilt

Chandelier finishes at about 50" x 60" in Yvonne's throw. It is seven-patch blocks, 8 1/2" finished, on point. Yvonne made a throw from it, four blocks across and five down, about 50" x 60", and that's the quilt this kit is for. The pattern itself is 60" x 60". Confident Beginner level.

There is not a single seam to match inside this block.

Not one. You sew a background rectangle to each side of a 5" square, you sew a background rectangle to each of two small squares, and you join three straight rows. The only seams you'll ever match in this entire quilt happen when the rows come together, and by then the pressing has already done that work for you. Press everything toward the print and the seams nest on their own. No pins. No unpicking at eleven at night. No squinting at points.

Yvonne made the whole quilt top on camera using nothing but these two packs, and she said something in the video that stayed with us. She'd been working on an intense pattern and it had quietly taken the joy out of her quilting. What she wanted was something calm. Something she could sit down to without having to think.

That's what this is.

The pattern is free. Chandelier is a pattern by Vanessa Goertzen of Lella Boutique, from her book Charm School: 18 Quilts from 5" Squares. Download the free Chandelier quilt pattern from Lella Boutique. Her version finishes at 60" x 60". The quilt in the video is Yvonne's smaller throw, four blocks across and five down, at about 50" x 60".

Why two different packs and not two of the same

Look closely at the quilt and you'll see it. Every floral diamond has two small squares sitting at opposite corners, and they are always the same print as the diamond itself. That repetition is the whole trick. It's what turns forty unrelated florals into one design instead of a pile of scraps, and it's where the chandelier effect comes from.

To get it, you need a 5" square and two 2½" squares of the same fabric. The charm pack gives you the 5" square. The 2½" x 10" mini strip gives you the two small squares, one cut from each end, in exactly the right width with nothing wasted.

You could do it with two charm packs instead, cutting one square down to feed the other. It works, and the pattern tells you how. But you'd be slicing up a perfectly good 5" square to get two little ones, and you'd have a pile of odd offcuts at the end.

Here you don't have to. The charm pack and the strip pack carry the same forty prints. Not the same collection, the same forty prints, one for one. So whichever thirty-two squares you pick as your favorites, the strips that match them are already sitting in the other pack.

What the leftovers become

The quilt uses 32 of the 40 charm squares and 32 of the 40 strips. After you've cut a small square from each end of a strip, you're left with a center piece around 4½" long, and there are 32 of them.

Yvonne didn't throw hers away. She sewed them end to end and ran them up two sides of the quilt as a pieced border. You can see it in the photograph: the colored run along the top edge and the one down the left, both finished off with background fabric. It's optional, and you can skip it or replace it with a plain border, but it means the scraps from this project become part of this project. Eight charm squares and eight strips go back in the drawer for something else.

What's in the bundle

• One Charm Pack, 40 squares, 5" x 5", Blossom Breeze Collection, 100% cotton. 32 are used for the quilt.
• One Mini Strip Pack, 40 strips, 2½" x 10", Blossom Breeze Collection, 100% cotton. 32 are used for the quilt. These are short 10" strips, not full width-of-fabric jelly roll strips.

Both packs arrive pre-cut with a pinked edge, ready to sew. Line the charm squares up by the straight woven edge rather than the pinked points and your blocks will come out true.

The quilt these two packs make

• Finished block: 8½" x 8½" (9" unfinished)
• Finished quilt: approximately 50" x 60", a generous throw
• Layout: 32 blocks on point, 4 across and 5 down, with side and corner triangles
• Skill level: beginner. Straight seams, no points to match inside the block, no curves, no templates

What you'll need to add

We'd rather you knew this before you order than after your parcel arrives.

• Cream background fabric, about 2½ yards. This is the white you see holding the whole quilt together, and it's the one thing we can't supply at the moment. Any good quilting cotton in cream or white will do the job.
• Backing, about 3¼ yards of standard fabric. Or one cut of extra-wide backing, which saves you seaming two lengths together. Our Northcott Impressions 108" Wide Backing, 3 Yard Cut in Cream covers a quilt this size in a single piece, with plenty left over.
• Batting, at least 58" x 68". Our 80/20 Cotton Polyester Batting, no scrim, Twin 72" x 90" is comfortably big enough and leaves you room to square up.
• Binding, about ½ yard.

Features & Benefits

• Two coordinated packs from one collection so that every 5" square has a matching pair of 2½" squares, which is what creates the chandelier effect.
• Pre-cut and ready to sew so that you can skip the measuring and the cutting mat and start piecing the same afternoon.
• 100% cotton so that the pieces are soft, press flat and behave under the needle.
• Lightweight weave, 120 GSM so that the fabric is easy to handle and forgiving (it is on the thinner, slightly sheer side, so worth keeping in mind for projects where coverage matters).
• Forty prints across pinks, corals, aquas, navies, reds and creams so that the quilt has lights that breathe and darks that anchor, which is what most scrappy quilts are missing.
• Enough fabric for the optional pieced border so that the offcuts finish the quilt instead of going in a bag.

Great for

A first quilt. A gift quilt. A baby-shower quilt. Or the project you reach for when you've just come off something complicated and you want to sit at the machine, chain-piece thirty-two blocks, listen to music and not think about anything at all.