I feel really lucky to have received this 1974 charm pack by Urban Chicks for Moda. A charm pack you say? Wasn’t I just all worried about pre-cuts and not being able to wash them? And didn’t I just swap my pre-release Sherbet Pips charm pack? Yes, yes, and yes. But I had to make an exception. This is an out-of-print charm pack and extremely hard-to-find. Actually, this whole line of fabric is out-of-print so to get a charm pack, with a 5″ square cut of every fabric in the line is a pretty neat thing. I told my swap partner that she had something very special, something quite desirable, and that a jelly roll of this line was selling for $60 on etsy. She said she didn’t mind and replied that she got the charm pack on sale anyway. I asked if she was sure and she still said yes, and today, I hold the charm pack in my hands.
A flickr friend shared this helpful link with me about how to carefully wash pre-cuts and that is how I will be spending part of my afternoon today and tomorrow ;) I think I will feel more comfortable working with the charm squares knowing that I have done my best to rinse off any sizing and chemical agents. Hopefully the squares will stay 5″ x 5″. I will do just a few and see how it goes before I start gently washing all of them. If all goes well, these charms will be part of my 1st quilt and I’m excited about it! I still need to work on a design because I want the quilt to be at least 4 ft x 6 ft and the charm pack has only 36 squares.
And she sent some extra lovelies!
What I sent to splendorfalls: An embroidery pattern by Sublime Stitching and some orange and yellow squares of fabric. Splendorfalls only wanted small cuts of orange and yellow fabrics, like 4″ x 4″ or less, but I sent bigger squares/rectangles to her. She was only expecting the 2 orange ones, but I found some solid yellow Kona Cotton in my stash, and some fabric scraps that have orange in them which I’m not sure if she’ll be able to use for her project.
And after looking at all my lovelies, I am still quite wowed. I logged onto flickr and dropped her a note to say thank you, and that I still feel like I owe her something else 
I suggested that if we swap again I definitely will owe her a little something stitchy. 
[...] most of y’all may know, my entire fabric stash is pre-washed, even my charm pack and that was done very carefully! I even pre-pre-wash! Before putting my fabrics in the washing [...]