Charlotte Loves Henry, Post 1

Hello and welcome to Charlotte loves Henry.  It seems a little strange to be writing a ‘first blog post’ when I’ve been blogging for years. You may know me from my original site, Serendipity Woods, where I’ve been crafting and blogging about animals and other wares that I make from recycled clothes. So why the change? Great question; and that one, and more, deserve explanation.

For starters, I’ve long been considering making a change from my original web host to wordpress. There are lots of reasons, but ultimately, let’s just say the old host served my original needs, but not my growing ones. That said, have you any idea how complicated it is to move your online LIFE from one place to another, intact? Let me tell you – it’s brutal. So, for a long while, I just winged it, even though I began posting less and less about the recycling of clothing, and more and more about quilting. Long story short – the hodgepodge was starting to make me twitch, and taking my online presence with me from one place to another seemed less and less important. What’s more, 2015 arrived and little did I know an out-loud declaration to ‘Resist buying new fabric in 2015 and use up my current stash,’ would incite just the opposite, and then some.

As of January 1, 2015, the above is what my fabric stash looked like, all in one place. Many of these fabrics I’d had for eons. Some I loved and treasured, but always seemed to struggle to find other fabrics to coordinate with them on a large scale to make quilts. Some I held onto for the simple purpose that they might ‘match’ something that struck me to make.  As the early part of 2015 progressed, I began to realized that even though I had all this fabric, it looked very little like any of the fabric I’d begun to adore as I stumbled around the web reading blog after blog, and following a variety of quilt makers, manufacturers, and designers on social media.  The other revealing thing I realized was that the vast majority of the fabric I owned – almost none of it possessed a pattern name or designer/manufacturer along the selvedge edge. ‘What does that mean,’ you ask, and ‘why should it matter?’ In a nutshell, it means that although I’ve always been thoughtful to choose fabric that looks and feels like good quality, there were features about fabric-choosing I wasn’t taking into account.

Now, before I lose you into the abyss that is complete and utter – ‘What is your point, really?’ let me just stop there and table a ‘What I’ve learned about fabric’ post for somewhere in the near future.

What I really want to do is wrap up this post by sharing a quick clarity for what happened after that, and what’s to come here at my new place, Charlotte loves Henry (fyi – I’ll explain the name later).  Ultimately, in all that resisting of fabric buying in order to use up what I had, I realized I didn’t want to use up what I had (at least for now).

• I wanted to start making things like I was seeing online and in current magazines.
• I wanted to be able to easily seek out a fabric by name and manufacturer (yep, this is where a name along the selvedge edge helps enormously, and not all manufacturers do it). I also wanted to have easy access to other fabrics that were DESIGNED to go along with it.
• I wanted to start focusing my blogging on other sewing/quilting products like threads and other notions so I could really give people like me a clearer sense of just how to go about making the most of this short life we’re given to make as many quilts as we can! Indeed it starts with great fabric, but there’s a whole lot more to consider!

Last on my list, I wanted to start using and blogging about quality fabric lines and especially PRECUTS. Other than the occasional (non-descript and of marginal quality) jelly-roll with which I had experience, this resistance-to-fabric-buying-resolution had brought me to the realization that (among other brilliant reasons) precut bundles are so great because they include a coordinated collection of heaven – er, I mean, all the fabrics match, and can be combined with solids or used in happy scrappy fashion to assemble just about any yummy, quilty, cheery thing (see what happens when I start thinking about it? I get all befuddled with silliness).

The very last thing I want to clarify in this, my first post, is the answer to the question that you MUST CERTAINLY be asking:  Why is your site/blog so empty, and more importantly – why are there no quilts?  Well, it’s simple, all my past projects don’t really reflect the style I’d like to invoke here. So I had two choices:  Figure all the amazing things I want to share here and lay them all out (and make them) BEFORE I shared my new site with the world (in which case you might think to yourself, ‘wow, this Serendipity Pam chick is a pretty amazing quilter/crafter, which would be a perfectly lovely way to be regarded right off the bat, but…), OR – I could take you along with me in my journey (so we can become amazing together).

I decided on the latter, and am currently in process of building my stash of quality fabrics and precuts.

This is my new stash so far (but OH MAN did I just have some fun shopping for an order that is set to arrive at the end of this week!).  Alongside and above these fabrics, are indeed some of my bunny friends, Charlotte, her dear brother, Henry (who is rarely far from her side) and Big Sophie. Though this blog is not intended to really involve my sharing of recycling projects in the customary way I did at Serendipity Woods, my existing animal friends live all over my studio. Their presence amongst my new venture as cheerful inspiration will undoubtedly find its way into photos, descriptions and tutorials, and of course – the new name of my new place…because Charlotte loves Henry, it’s true – and when you work around that sort of happy, connected joy, it just spills over everywhere.

I hope you stick with me as I share what I learn about great products, cool patterns by my quilting friends and also some of my own as I go along.  Cheers!

Up Next:

Project 1:  A quilt is needed upon which Charlotte and Henry can play cards in the yard (since grass is awfully itchy)