Charmed, I'm Sure

The thing about sewing is, it's fast. This is both good and bad. It's good if you need a skirt in a hurry or you have mending to do. It's bad if you want to sew for the fun of it and enjoy the process. I've had to expand my sewing interests a bit to accommodate my desire to sew for fun.


Fortunately, there are lots of other people who like to sew, and they've walked this path before me. I'm sure those of you who sew have known about charm packs forever, but they're new to me. For those of you who don't sew, charm packs are packs of precut 5" squares of coordinating fabrics that are perfect for making quilts. There are all sorts of ways they can be cut and pieced to make an infinite number of designs, but I fell in love with this fabric and wanted to enjoy it just the way it is. I also didn't feel like taking time to cut shapes or come up with a pattern--I just wanted to start sewing. I just laid the squares out on the floor and arranged them in strips, sewing each strip and then finding the fabrics for the next one, not exactly randomly, but just choosing fabrics as I went to get a pleasing mix of color and pattern.


A few weeks ago, my husband was really sick. He spent several days lying on the sofa, and bemoaned the fact that there were no good sofa blankets to use. (We have several nice sofa blankets. Unfortunately, the nicer they are, the faster they are commandeered by the kids for use on their beds.) So when I discovered charm packs I instantly decided to make a "feel better" quilt for the sofa. You know the kind, soft and colorful, and it makes you feel better when you're sick or sad or tired. When I was in the hospital for an extended stay, my best friend brought me an old quilt off her bed to use. I clung to that thing like a lifeline for weeks, and I swear it helped me hang on through all sorts of awful things.

When I saw this combination of fabrics, I knew immediately it was just what I was looking for: cheery, colorful, whimsical--just what I'd like to snuggle up with if I were feeling the need for a little comfort. The KH came in while I was working on this and when I told him what I was making, he said, "This is going to sound weird, but it makes me feel better just looking at it like that." And then he wistfully added, "The kids are going to try to steal it. Can it be for me?" Are you kidding? With a compliment like that, heck yeah, it can be for him!