2" charm square swap---My Charming Lap Quilt

This quilt (46x46) began with a charm square swap at the Curious Quilter. I signed up to swap 800 2" charm squares--100 to 8 different quilters. This involved cutting 100 DIFFERENT fabrics into 2" squares. I made 8 sets to swap, one set to keep and the last set of 100 I divided in 2 and sent them as "newbie" gifts to quilters just beginning their stash.

I arranged my set of 100 squares into a 10 x 10 square and sewed them together. For the back of my block I cut a 2" strip of white for writing my name, city and brief description of the swap. I then quilted my block to the labeled backing fabric.

These charms are from Liane B., Aurora, CO.

There were a bunch of Halloween prints so I arranged them together on the diagonal and then put all the 30's prints together in one corner then filled in the rest.

This lovely set are from Barb K., Macungie, PA.

These went together effortlessly. I started with the yellow and built around it.

These charms are from Brooke L., Grinnell, IA.

These were challenge for me. There were a bunch of dark fabrics and then a few whites that really popped--not to mention the one electric pink and electric blue that refused to blend. 

This is my progression. After I made changes I took a photo. It's really hard to know when you are "done" rearranging the squares. Some squares get swapped as I'm sewing the row so these photos may not be the final arrangement.

This set is from Connie G., Boise, ID.

This set had several duplicates. She sent 102 squares but there were 7 sets of duplicates. I worked with these by stringing them on the diagonal instead of trying to hide them. I think it makes the block interesting. The large bunch of black/white prints here are fun too.

These little beauties are from Nina T., Boras, SWEDEN.

Nina says Swedish quilters buy American quilt fabrics but there are many here I've never seen before. I started to arrange these with the ONE and only purple square in the center surrounded by white then colors. But my favorite square that she sent was the red with tiny grey mice so I made it the focal print and sent the purple square to the corner.

This little square was two sided!! I hadn't realized until I was flipping them over to sew. I chose to use the lighter side with the big flowers because you can still see the shadow of the print on the flip side.

I liked the Snoopy square with the pink background so I built this block from that starting point. 

These squares are from Mindy R. from Sherman, TX.

Rene T. from Waddell, AZ sent these stripes and plaids.

And last but not least is the block with squares from The Curious Quilter herself

Mary W. from St Paul, MN.

Mary actually sent 139 squares instead of 100!

 She sent several conversational prints. I like the gnome.

Mary's extra squares were incorporated into the back of her square.

This is the back with all the labels on each block.

Thanks to all the swappers for making this fun Charming Lap Quilt possible!