How many 5\u2033 charm squares and packs to cover a quilt top.
Charms finish at 4.5\u2033; a charm pack is ~42 squares.
Charm packs are bundles of five inch squares cut from a matching fabric collection. When they are sewn together with quarter inch seams, each square finishes at four and a half inches. The calculator divides the quilt width and height by the finished size of the squares to find how many squares are needed, and how many packs that makes.
A typical pack holds about 42 squares, so a quilt made only of charms can be quite small. Many patterns combine charm squares with sashing, borders, or a background fabric to make a larger quilt while using only a few packs.
Buy an extra pack if you want a variety of fabrics and a choice of which squares to use. Duplicates within a pack are common, so you can plan a layout in which similar prints do not sit side by side.
Lay out the squares on a table or a design wall before you sew, so you can see how the colors and patterns balance. Take a photo of the layout so that you can sew the rows in the correct order.