This is the time of year when many of us clean, organize, and purge in our homes and our workspaces.
If you are a quilter, that may also mean that you take out your stash, reorganize your fabrics and color stories, and find more efficient ways to store and display your threads, cutting tools, and notions. It is very satisfying after a few hours or even a few days to look across your table or your studio space, and see neatly stacked clear plastic boxes with color coded labels, or your 200 color thread collection symetrically organized into a visual color wheel, or all of your quilt marking pencils lined up in a neat row like little lead soldiers.
Don't get too attached.
Creating is a messy business, and no matter how much you stop and clean up as you are designing, cutting and stitching, let's face it…that magazine-perfect creative space is not going to stay clean and neat for long.
Then there is the question of HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH FABRIC?
My own personal fabric collection was really getting out of hand when we decided to open eQuilter, and then it became not an addiction but a business. *smile*
I still have a textile collection that is spread out in 4 locations between home and work, although I do a yearly purge and try to get rid of things that are no longer tantalizing. But most of it is still impossible to part with, so I focus on organizing and compartmentalizing all my notions, embellishments and other creative doo-dads.
So when does collecting become hoarding?
When you have a tiny little path through the room between stacks of fabric that go from floor to ceiling. (and you never share or give away anything)
When does cleaning and editing become obsessive purging and subsequent obsessive regret?
When you wake up in a cold sweat at 3 am and realize you gave away or threw away something that was PERFECT for a new project… that you just thought of at 2:59 am.
A lot of quilters make jokes about how they hide their stash from their spouses, but I really do know people who keep their fabric in the trunk of their car and then sneak it into the house late at night.
Well if collecting fabric is a guilty pleasure, I say it is much better than doing drugs or becoming an alcoholic.
Even though we have a warehouse full of 20,000 fabrics, I still collect textiles when I travel. I can't display them all, so I store them in an antique chest and bring them out to "play" when I need a picker-upper. Exquisite embroidery, hand-loomed ikats, hand-tied tiny shibori dots, embellishment with metallic threads and glass beads, and 3-dimensional applique… I don't cut these up, but I use them as design inspiration. It is my personal textile petting zoo.
Our Hand-Painted Batik Panels, collectible Kona Bay panels, and Japanese Noren Panels are a great way to start your own textile petting zoo…but these can be cut and stitched into wallhangings and wearable art if you want to do more than just pet them!
I had a couple in my shop and the wife was buying fabrics-the husband said that he was fine with his wife being a quilter because he always knew where to find her…in her studio or at the fabric shop. He preferred that to having to look in a bar for her. I loved that thought. Of course twice I have been in a fabric store (this was before cell phones)when they said “your husband is on the phone – he was looking for you” I thought that was funny…if I was not at home or my shop, then I was at the fabric store!
I so LOVE the concept of seeing my fabrics as my personal textile petting zoo. You should see me in a good fabric store as I wander up and down the aisles, touching all of the pretties. I once fell forwards into a pile of animal fur plush velour, creating quite a laugh from the staff. As the self-proclaimed “Button and Bead Queen of Maryland” I have a LOT of jars of frou-frou for my art quilts, but my fabrics are my paint…the base for the pieces….
Nancy Smeltzer
http://www.fiberfantasies.com
Luana–Where do you recommend donating that no-longer-tantalizing fabric? I do an annual purge as well and need to find some charities who take good fabric. Please let us know. Thanks! Love eQuilter.
Joan Hogan
Allen, Texas
Joan – It seems that even in teeny little towns, there will be a quilt group that is busy making quilts for those in need. Obviously if there is a quilt guild I would start there (somebody will know who is doing this work) – and if no quilt guild start calling the churches. If you are in a small community then check in with the next biggest community. There are certainly plenty of national groups like ABC Quilts for instance, but I think you probably would want to keep it local. If there isn’t a local group – hey maybe you should start one! Around here there are groups making quilts for abused kids and battered wives, cancer patients, preemie babies, and groups that make quilts to auction off and raise money for a cause. Not to mention the social aspect of getting together with a group of quilters who meet regularly to socialize while making those quilts! Good luck!
I started with the purge bit last year pulling out fabrics that were lovely but not ones that inspired me anymore to make pillowcases. It back fired because i ended using all of that and heading off to be 50 yds more!
Have you been in my sewing room? It’s as if you were writing about me!About 2 weeks ago I did exactly what you described – sorted, refolded, reorganized, relabeled my big fabric stash. I picked up all the scattered pins from my latest quilting project, reorganized the sewing machine drawers and even got my big button collection all together. I realized as I was doing this that it was ridiculous that I ever had this much fabric and other sewing stuff in the first place. One of the reasons for the abundance of sewing notions was that people I know give me their family members’ sewing stuff after they pass away. How odd is that? “I know a woman who sews a lot, let’s dump this 70 year old sewing box on her.” The truth is that I enjoy looking through other people’s sewing boxes and seeing what products women used to use to sew in the 1940s and 50s. I was able to part with leftover farics from long-ago-finished-projects and small scraps I could not ever possibly get around to using. Those small scraps went in a giant Hefty bag to a Montessori school teacher to use for craft projects. When I gave it to her, she acted like she won the lottery. I also discovered that many charities want large fabric pieces, so at least I know nothing will go to waste.
Luana, your travel photos intrigue me. I love this latest one. Our college daughter did get to Prague, Salzburg and Vienna with her choir. Thank you for your travel tips – they were helpful. She reported that the cold weather seemed a different, more bone chilling cold than in America! She was disappointed that no flash photography was allowed in many of the beautiful buildings. She enjoyed it all, and I sort of got the experience of her trip through your inspiring photos. Thanks, again.
I really enjoyed this post. I love the idea of keeping some of our fabrics as a “petting zoo.” I think we all, or most, have some fabrics that we just can’t cut into. Your take on collecting vs. hoarding was reassuring.
I paint and dye a lot of my own fabrics, which I finally started using, giving as gifts, or selling to my buddies who like such things.
I have sold some fabrics at our guild tag sale, where parts of the proceeds benefited the guild. I also donate to a local thrift shop where lots of sewers and quilters shop. However, for the most part I keep them, the plan being to make quilts for charity or gifts. Ah, yes: my New Year’s resolution.
I love reading your blog. I just had to comment. I am somewhat new to quilting. About a year. And, my stash. It is my love. I can so relate to ‘hiding’, and when is the right time to ‘bring it in’. I have put fabric outside a side door here at home. Gone out the back way and brought it in. Or sometimes when that special package comes in the mail, from my favorite online store! EQuilter 🙂 The Juicy Coutore, the pieces that I love to pet. I really like what you said about having the pieces for inspiration. That they are. All like little friends come out to play. Thank you so much. Quilting is such a meaningful hobby. Something only another quilter can understand. My stash has grown, almost outgrown it’s spot I have given it. My only regret is space. My house tends to get dusty so I do need to keep things under wraps, only disadvantage of living off a dirt road. But I love to look at the future projects and pull them out of their bends so they can breath.
I love every single piece of fabric in my 30-year-old stash and can’t imagine parting with a single scrap. In the past two years, though, I have quit buying much fabric because I seem to repeat color/pattern choices. My stash is varied, colorful, a full glorious paintbox to create anything that interests me. I find one doesn’t need lots and lots and lots of fabrics (okay, most won’t agree with me), just well-chosen ones augmented with selective purchases to fill in any gaps.
Mary in Snowy, Snowy Tennessee
I’d love more ideas for purging. I’ve gotten to the point where I have too much fabric. Hard to imagine but true. I’ve fallen in love with new (to me) color stories, like Kaffe Fassett’s bright stuff, or some of the French country patterns, but I have so much Asian fabric and northwoods-type fabric that I tell myself I can’t indulge. And I have lots of quilts to make that no longer interest me, when I’d much rather be doing something with fabrics I’ve fallen in love with but resisted.
So I need to figure out how to climb out from all the beautiful stuff weighing me down. I live in a town of 500, next nearest town is 2,000, so I’m limited.
I spent a month organizing my room and spent so much money on fabric holders ( they are fantastic ) an can now see two floor to ceiling shelves of fabric. It didn’t take long to buy more fabric and have now where to store again but back in the bins I wanted to get away from to begin with
I LOVE the description “personal textile petting zoo! I am constantly reorganizing my sewing room—too much fabric, (much of it “yours”) in too small a space, but it’s still SO much better than the dining room table which is where I started quilting. (My fabric storage for the many BIG plastic fabric boxes was in a corner of the living room. My parents were over one night and my dad said, “I bet you have almost a hundred dollars worth of fabric there!”) I do give away fabrics—10 grocery bags for a school project last year—and I’m not acquiring fabric nearly as often as I would like to, but the amount still never seems to change 🙂 But it’s so inpsirational just looking at fabrics, and there’s always the fun of discovering something that I’d forgotten I had. Often it’s just the right fabric for what I’m working on. So happy to have discovered your website years ago!
I try to achieve balance between too much and too little.
Isn’t it wonderful that we all have this common bond, the love of fabric. I work in a patchwork fabric store and can frequently be seen hugging bolts of new, beautiful, colourful fabric. Despite working amongst the gorgeous stuff I still can’t resist buying more online or at other stores in town. Totally addicted, can’t part with my more than 20 year stash and loving it!!!
Virginia in Taroona, Tasmania, Australia
I’ve been collecting fabric for years,and buy far more than I will ever use. But how can you anticipate what you will need when an inspiration strikes? And how wonderful to find something already in the stash to add. I’ve seen my tastes in fabrics change over the years….I still love the old traditional patterns of the early 1800’s, and I also have a weakness for “feedsack” patterns, but rarely use them anymore. I do share my stash with a friend, who makes table runners for sale in the local shops. She’s older and doesn’t use the internet, always loves to have a new fabric to use, and I like to see how she uses them…I think she has opened my eyes sometimes to how nice a fabric was, and I like to think I’ve stretched her “art” by extending fabrics from my collection, for we have very different tastes.
I lost my mother at birth, and I several times dreamed of her surrounded by rich textiles. I don’t know if this influenced my love of fabric, but perhaps I have become that figure in the room full of rich pattern and color.
I have moved around all my life, it seems. Still, I have managed to carry around things from my childhood home, even through a hurricane. Recently, tho, I’ve had the will and need (not for space reasons) to pare down possessions, especially from my past. I looked through everything I owned and realized I’d been carrying these things around with me all my life. It was just time to let it go. I’ve never felt better! I have no regrets, and this included things from my sewing room. Now I have a clearer head to create and focus on my true desires for creating new designs and more space!! I have kept only what I truely like and what inspires me now– not what inspired me 30 years ago. We do change and sometimes it’s therapeutic to let some things (even what we thought were great ideas) go! It unclutters your heart and mind. Good luck– don’t be afraid to let go, welcome change, be adventurous!
I really enjoyed all the posts on this. I must admit looking, admiring and shopping for fabric is a great stress reliever. I work in the emergency department of a inner city. At the end of a midnight shift when I am waiting for a few last minute things to be taken care of I jump onto the web and look at the new products that equilter has for that week. I do buy quite a bit, but really I love to look at them too. I immediately relax. I belong to the stash builder club on equilter. Nothing more exciting than a surprise in the mail with fabric! Thanks!
Just the other day I was asking myself the same question! My stash isn’t THAT big, but if I stopped buying I wouldn’t run out of fabric for months 🙂 I always loved fabric and some textiles seem to be too precious to use up (like that particular design of which I haven’t bought enough !!!).
One day, when starting a new project, I caught myself thinking something along the line of “now you have to cut up that BEAUTIFUL fabric”. That’s when I realized that I was about to become a hoarder and that I needed to change my attitude.
Depending on what’s going on in my life buying fabric can be soothing or exciting. And getting a package from eQuilter is definitely a highlight.
So I use it up and buy some more!
Love