Recess by American Jane for Moda. It was love at first sight when I received a Layer Cake of this collection back in May for the Altered Mini Tins project. Vibrant colors matched with fun retro prints.
I’ve been experimenting with carrying three of the specialty packs that Moda offers. Jelly Rolls, Layer Cakes and Charm Squares. A quick overview if you’ve never heard of these things before (that would be me too just 6 months ago!):
Jelly Rolls – 2 1/2″ strips cut selvage to selvage. Each roll contains 40 prints. There is always at least one print of every fabric in the collection. In the case of Recess there are 36 prints which means 4 of the strips repeat.
Layer Cakes - 10″ x 10″ squares. Each stack contains 40 swatches. Again, there’s always at least one swatch of every fabric in the collection.
Charm Squares – 5″ x 5″ squares. Each stack contains 36 swatches.
Moda will be introducing two new types of pre-cut fabric packs in 2009:
Turnovers will feature half-square triangles (created by cutting 6″ squares in half). These half-square triangles will work with 5″ charm squares. How fun will these be?!
Sweet Rolls are 1 1/2″ strips packaged just like Jelly Rolls.
These specialty packs have inspired many quilt designers to write patterns that utilize the pre-cut sizes. Two designers that I carry in the shop are Two Sisters at Squirrel Hollow and Threaded Pear Studio.
I received a question about pre-washing these packs. I would recommend against it. The fabric edges are finished with a shallow pinking shear edge. If washed they’d lose their pre-cut size reducing their usefulness.
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And now for the winner of my birthday witch give away: #42, Regina of Mostly Turquoise. Send me your snail mail Regina and this little witch kit will be flying your way in time for All Hallows Eve.
Yummy fabrics, and I love the pre-cut idea especially in a related range.
It just all hangs together instantly with less fuss.
The Turnovers should be great too and will be very useful and add variety.
I LOVE the Recess set from Moda! Very vibrant!
I love the Recess line!! So bright and cheery. I am so excited about the Sweet Rolls. How handy will they be? Eek. I’m a novice quilter and these little packs make it so easy to put one together.
Wow, I have never heard of layer cakes before, but now i think I will have to check these out! I think the only problem is that there are too many fabrics in there I would want, and not enough time to complete all the projects with them!
hi – just wanted to put my two cents in about the jelly rolls. i made a quilt using one for a christmas gift last year, and it completely fell apart after the first *delicate* washing. i used 1/4 inch seams, and a pattern made by two sisters i think. it was so frustrating to try to repair it after it had already been completed… and each time it is washed more seams fall apart. so, needless to say, if i ever use jelly rolls again, i’ll plan on using 1/2 inch seams.
I’ve used the precut packs for a number of things. They’re nice to get a whole collection in a less expensive way.
I agree with you about not prewashing the precut packs. I just made my first qquilt with charm packs and did prewash the charm squares. I ended up having to cut the squares down even further once they were pieced. So instead of having 4 1/2 inch squares I had 4 1/4 inch squares. It doesn’t seem like much when I write about it, but that 1/4 inch times 10 across and 12 down adds up.
Love your blog!
Has anyone used turnovers and charms together? I was wondering if I should use 1/2″ seams so it will match up. Know of any good patterns using turnovers and charms?
Laura: I haven’t done any projects with the turnovers. I’m a little confused myself. When Moda originally told me about them I thought the marketing was that sewing two together would result in a 5″ square so that they could be mixed with charm squares. The triangles would need to be 5 7/8″ to make this work exactly (at the least the way I was taught to make 1/2 square triangles). My guess is the 6″ gives you some room for error but they’d need to be squared to 5″ after sewing them together.
I did see a neat idea for squaring up before pressing open the bias seam. By using a triangle ruler and placing the long end along the stitching line at 5″ and then cutting the two angled sides it would open up to 5″. I’ve always squared mine after opening them up so I like the concept of doing it before.
Moda has a lot of free patterns on their website and the Moda Bake Shop blog for using their pre-cuts. You can find it here:
patterns: http://www.unitednotions.com/un_main.nsf/free_patterns
Bake Shop blog: http://www.modabakeshop.com/
Is there any site that shows the fabrics for each line of American Jane collections? (like Red Rooster and other companies have….) I would love to be able to see them all laid out. I have never found anyone who carries all the fabrics in Recess, or all the ones in Punctuation, etc. so I can see them in their entirety.