Candy Squares in Winter Reds

It all started with 2 mini charm packs of Midwinter Reds by Moda.  It's hard to resist those little 2.5" squares.  One day I just had to open them up and see what I could do with them.

I was very surprised to realize that a coffee colored solid that I had in my stash was almost a perfect match for this collection.  It was a fabric I had bought it to use as sashing for a Civil War repro project that hadn't made the final cut.  I never thought I would find another use for it, but here it was.

I looked around the Internet for mini charm square patterns and found this pattern for a table runner on the Moda Bake Shop website called "Candy Squares".

Then the fun began, matching and sorting little squares to make the finished product look like they had just been oh-so-casually arranged.

Pay no attention to the seam ripper over on the right.

After a bit of play, and throwing in a few fabrics to add to the mix, I had an arrangement I liked.

The piecing from this point was not your typical rows and columns piecing, so I printed out a copy of the photo above and marked the sewing order to help keep things organized.

I should probably mention that I did not follow the pattern's cutting directions for the setting triangles and corner triangles.   I re-calculated the measurements so that all the outside borders would be on the straight of grain.

I used the coffee colored fabric for a narrow inner border.  For the outer border, I thought I might have to go the the fabric store to buy yardage of one the the Midwinter Red fabrics, but I actually found the perfect coordinate  right in my stash.  (Leftover from this quilt.)

Here is the finished table topper:

I hope to get it quilted and on my coffee table in time for Valentine's Day.  It's simply the logical thing to do with a fabric called"Midwinter Red"  and a pattern called "Candy Squares", don't you think?