Using Quilting Panels with Precuts

Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the MSQC. Today I want to talk about panels, specifically pre cuts and panels. If you need a quick project, panels are the way to go. When a designer designs some fabric they often design a panel to go with it. But we don’t always know what to do with that panel. So I wanted to talk about using pre cuts with the panel.This quilt behind me, how adorable is this? This is Googlies by Michael D’Amore for Benartex. They have two panels that go with this line. One is this monster panel. The other one is the alphabet panel. And what we did with this one is we put the charm packs and we just sewed them side by side and lined them up and staggered them from one side to the other with a monster at either end. When you get a panel you need to really look at it and decide what you’re going to do with it. A lot of the panels come long like this. So they’re just long spread out panels. Sometimes they have some extra detailing on it up here. And you just have to really, you know, use your imagination and look. Now there was a mom who came in awhile ago and she was buying seasonal panels, you know like a fall one and then a Christmas one and things like that. And they were all long like this. And she was leaving them just like that and quilting them for her son’s, her college son’s dorm room door. Because she thought if she put a nice quilted panel on the outside of his dorm room door it would attract the right kind of woman. There’s a thinking mom right there. But anyway when I look at a panel I try to decide what I want to do with it. With big squares like this I would probably, you know, cut these apart, you know, border them. Add some pre cuts. Take a jelly roll strip. You know you can do so much with the pre cuts. You could just sew the blocks together. You could use a jelly roll and sew, you know, the strips together. You could do the scrappy four patch. You can do all kinds of border things with these panels. But you just really have to use your imagination. So I want to show you some of these panels and how, how they work and how they come. Now most of the panels will come on a bolt like this. And you’ll buy a repeat. So it will go, you know, it will go along so many and then you’ll see the same thing appear. And then you’ll buy that, just that little section. It’s really pretty reasonable when you start looking at a panel because it’s generally not an entire yard. So like this one. How cute would this be? If I were using this panel I would just put this right in the center of my quilt and use a pre cut and maybe make a piano key border to go around the outside or something like that. This would be so darling in the middle of a little boy’s quilt. So I wanted you to look at some of these. This is a Christmas panel. And again you just have to open them up and dream on them, see what you can do. This is adorable just like this. But if you wanted to cut it apart, you can see that they’ve left enough wide seams, see right here in the middle on this green. There’s a wide enough place that you could cut that apart. You’re still going to save some of this on a border. And it’s just going to make a darling quick quilt that you just have to have quilted. This one comes with these extra little blocks on the top and the bottom. What I did with this was I cut these all out. And I made one where I had a piece of, you know, you can get all of these come with the fabric on bolts. You know all these fabrics are in a, available in a bolt. But what’s fun about the pre cuts is that when you use pre cuts to do your borders, the pre cuts are going to have each one of these individual fabrics, you know, that they’ve used in the panel, to put all around them. So it’s going to be all inclusive and great. So on this one what I did was cut these blocks apart. And I put a border and a block and a border and a block. You know and just used them, used my imagination. I want to show you some of these. This was a fun one we got one year. This is a Halloween one. And I just want to show you a couple of things I did. This Halloween panel right here, this came with two panels. And I cut them apart and bordered them separately. Put two little borders around it. I mean just that quick and made a darling little wall hanging. This is the panel I just showed you right here. And all I did again was just put a border around it. It’s perfect for hanging on a door. You know hanging on a narrow wall space. Just brighten up your area when you get ready for the holidays. But even take a look at this. I had a little piece of a panel left. Made a cute Trick or Treat bag. You know you can do all kinds of things with these panels. So just take a look at your panel. Let your imagination go. Throw a pre cut with it which uses all colors. And you’ve got an instant project. We hope you enjoyed this quick tutorial from the MSQC.