Charm Squares
 

At one time, I thought a "charm square quilt" was made of squares (or other shapes, for that matter) that were all different - no duplicates -

and that the SIZE of the pieces could be "whatever worked" -

when did a five-inch square become the "definition" of a charm square?

Probably when someone decided to name jelly roll and all the other fattening things such as turnovers for pieces of fabric. It just caught on. It was a better profit margin than selling fabric by the yard.

A (traditional) charm quilt is one where you use only one piece of each fabric in the quilt. Charm squares became a 5" square of each fabric in a specific line, created by the manufacturers to enable people to purchase a sample of a whole line (standardized swatches) we, as quilters found these 5" square collections to be handy-dandy and created the market for them, which the manufacturers were happy to accommodate. There is still a difference between *Nickle Quilts* (quilts made with 5" squares, at times called charms) and ** charm quilts** made with hundreds of individual pieces, often collected in charm exchanges and scrap saving

This is also my understanding.

I was surprised when I first bought a charm pack with two of the same fabric. So if there were some fabrics that I would never have bought, I end up with two pieces that I get rid of. I like the 5" ones because it gives you more options as to what pattern you want to use.