and my first day blogging! My goal is to use this venue for all my quilting interests and use Facebook to keep my non-quilting friends up to date on the rest of my life. You ask, with a giggle, "You mean there is life beyond quilting?" I just discovered the passionate blogging quilters about 6 weeks ago. Who knew? I mean obviously I've read a blog here and there n(non quilting ones) but to find this network of smart, helpful, fun people who share this special interest...I feel so fortunate.
I, like many others, am trying to reduce my stash. I think I was really into over indulgence in the '90's and somewhat in the early 2000's. More money, less time. (My DH said there ware worse things to be addicted to) I told myself that the money I spent just meant that when I retire (now looking at two years of so) I would be all set with plenty of fabric, patterns and books. Unfortunately I've found, once I got my fabric organized (thanks to tips from other bloggers) that my tastes in fabric, colors and prints, have changed. There are lovely bright and fun colors and designs coming out each season....and I want some!!
The picture above is of my current stash. Flat folded but not yet divided into smaller stacks and colors. If you look closely you will see there are two stacks. The back one being taller than the front one. I wanted the picture down here but alas and alack my lack of blog experience is showing!
So my organization plan? I gave thought to what would suit me and this is what I defined as MY rules. Anything one yard or over was folded neatly into flat folds. I learned the technique from a blogger! All easy to see and get to. I define and store "scraps" in a different way. Pieces that are 12-18 inches are saved in one box for now. Anything that is a "fat quarter" yard...that does not mean officially that it measures 18x22 but 18x22 is 396 sq inches of fabric...sooooo any piece that is close to 396 sq inches is considered, in my lexicon, a "fat quarter" are stored in another box and anything less than 12 inches wide are cut into strips starting with biggest possible of 5", to a medium of 2 1/2 inches and to the smallest I would save, 1 1/2 inches. It works well for me. Keeping in mind that I have been saving 2 1/2 in strips and 1 1/2 inch strips since the 1980's...probably since 1984 when I took a class using a rotary cutter. What a wonderful invention!
So back to the line "I, like many others, am trying to reduce my stash." Now that I'm organized what are going to be the rules for reducing that stash? Okay...the parameters of this is still being defined. First I said...hmmm, you have to use fabric from your stash but you are allowed to buy any supporting fabric needed. Sounds good but a little too loose. I mean, I get to decide what the term "supporting fabric" means. LOL! This resulted in my buying 15 1/4 yards of fabric in the last 3 weeks. And only using up 3 yards of stash. Well, I did have some quilt tops started that I wanted to finish and I did need some backings and most of my pieces are like 1 1/2 yards to 2 1/2 yards which isn't big enough for backings, etc, etc, etc. Denial and definately not working towards my goal of REDUCING (get that word, REDUCING) the stash. So now I am working on more realistic rules. I don't yet know what the end result will be but I will share with you later.
I do not expect future posts to run this long...maybe a picture or two and some comments but who knows where this will really lead?
Love and Hugs!
Toni
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