i have a question that has been nagging at me for awhile, maybe some of you can shed some light on it:

when we first start quilting, we are taught about the 1/4" seam, and how important it is.......so most fabric is cut with a 1/2" added to incorporate the 1/4" seam...so the question is why are charm packs sold with out the 1/2"? they are usually 4", 8" or 10", so when you sew them they become 3.5 " and now you have cut everything else in the quilt to weird sizes.....please helo me understand this.....thanks

Good question. I would like to know too. I'll being watching this post.

I think it is a matter of convenience more than anything.
Even inches are much easier to line up the ruler than the 1/2" and time is money. And remember these are cut overseas where inches are probably not common measurement.

With charm packs, my guess would be that the 5" dimension was an even number that would waste as little of the width of the fabric as possible.

With fabric that's (conservatively) 42" wide, you can get four 5" squares on either side of the fold. The 10" squares are just double this, so you get two squares instead of four. You wouldn't really want to get a square that was cut "over the fold" because then you would have a crease that might be hard to iron out.

So I think the sizes were done based on practicality.

This is what I believe is correct

http://www.modabakeshop.com/p/weights-and-measures.html
Maybe this will help

charm packs are normally 5"
there are many books out (called nickle quilts) that use charm squares---the patterns are designed for the 5" square=

layer cakes are 10" squares-
jelly rolls 2 1/2"
honey buns 1 1/2"

seam allowances are not part of pre-cuts= they expect you to use patterns that call for the cut size of the fabric...the charm pack or what ever pre-cut you are using are cut size- not finish size.

Hey! That's a great link! Thank you :lol:

I'm a fairly new quilter, but my understanding is that they are cut at 5" to go with 2 1/2" strips. Sew two 2 1/2" strips together and you get a strip that's 4 1/2"; the 5" charm gives you a little room for error when you're matching up the two. I believe I was taught that in a beginning quilt class.

LOL, that agreement would take all day to read.
I hate those things and made a mistake once and the agreement had a price in it and I had signed up to pay for a monthly charge.
So now I am hesitant to sign any of them.