How much fabric is in a charm pack?

Here's another question we get asked a lot : "How much fabric is in a charm pack?"

The easy answer is the one that's printed on the pack – forty-two 5" squares! But that might not be super helpful if you're trying to envisage making a quilt with it! So here's a quick calculation to give you a better idea of what you can do with charm packs...

We'll assume you're going to use the 5" squares whole for this example. (You can, of course, cut them up into triangles or smaller units, but that affects the number of seams you'll have, so let's keep it simple for today's tip.)

• With 5" cut squares, your finished patch size is 4 ½" square (losing ¼" either side for seam allowances.) 
• A sensible layout for 42 squares would be 7 rows x 6 columns 
• 7 x 4 ½" = 31 ½" and 6 x 4 ½" = 27" 
• So a single charm pack sewn together this way would make a 31 ½" x 27" quilt. That might be fine for a play mat or cot quilt.

To make something bigger, you could use two charm packs or alternate your charm squares with 5" squares of a plain or contrasting fabric. 

• With the 84 squares from two charm packs, you could make a quilt that's 10 rows x 8 columns (ie, 44" x 36") or 9 rows x 9 columns (40 ½" x 40 ½")

So there you go – if you're planning a project that's larger than a cot quilt, you'll need at least two charm packs!