Stash status update

Wednesday 4 September 2013
Thanks for all your comments on my last post - I'm pleased that you're all as impressed as I am with myself! I was fortunate to have two months at the beginning of the year when both the kids were at daycare three days before I went back to work which gave me a good headstart, but overall I think I've kept up quite a steady output of finished items.  And thanks KC and Summerflies for your perspective - I hadn't really thought about making only one wadder out of all those projects (though there were a few close saves and some borderline ones too!).

Some of you may remember that earlier this year I started cleaning up my stash which had gotten very unruly indeed. I got as far as doing the purple, red and grey shelves of fabrics before my enthusiasm petered out - it takes quite a long time to measure and catalogue all those pieces of fabric before folding them neatly. Not to mention having to make some hard decisions about culling some of the less lovely pieces out of the collection. I'd much rather be sewing!

But I had an unexpected two days off work earlier this week with an annoying cold, and while I was too sick to do any actual sewing I did put the rare child free time to good use to do a bit more stash cleaning up. So I decided to focus on the blue and green shelves of the stash, which looked like this before I started:


What a complete mess! But after a day of culling, measuring and refolding (interspersed with resting and Dr Phil) this is how it looks now:

Much better. I didn't actually get rid of too much from these two colour groups, it's just that folding and storing them neatly takes up much less space.  Those three shelves there contain about 290m (317yds) which kinda puts the 55m of stash fabric I've used this year into perspective doesn't it? Especially when I have 9 other shelves equally full of fabric (gulp!). No wonder there was no noticeable difference in the stash despite sewing so much from it.

Handling all those fabrics was certainly inspiring - I have lots of future project ideas swirling around in my head and being added to my very long 'one day' sewing to do list. And better still I found a few gems amongst it all: two Liberty cottons that I have no idea where they came from, or how long they've been there:



So now I'm about one-third the way through sorting out my stash - still so much to do....

14 comments:

  1. Definitely worth the clean up finding those Liberty prints. A sewists work is never done!

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  2. WOw! Very impressed here! I love it that your blue and green stash is so extensive in meterage too. It puts my stash into perspective.
    Those liberty prints are delightful

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  3. I love that you found not one, but two Liberty prints! Ha! I wish my stash was large enough that I could find treasures in it! At best, right now, I might find $10 in my winter jacket pocket. Is it weird that the thought of organizing your stash is just as exciting to me as sewing?

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  4. Cleaning up yor stash is a big job, ohhh but such a rewarding one the job is done.

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  5. I'm impressed with your stash cleaning job! I would probably got distracted in 1/3 of the process, took out some fabrics, sat down with patterns, mused over them, got bored and went to do some knitting. *^v^* It must be nice to stand in front of your fabric shelves and choose, and imagine new dresses.
    (it makes me want to buy some cotton! ^^*~~)

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  6. I'm impressed with your measuring as you go. I'm working on resorting and organizing my stash too but I'm not taking the time to measure yardage. I may regret this later...
    The clean shelves look so beautiful!

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  7. Great result and that would inspire me to sew even more.

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  8. Very nice and neat. It is great to go through the stash occasionally - wonderful to find things you had forgotten about.

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  9. Who knew that fabric in the stash would mate and produce two pieces of Liberty of London! That's golden!

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  10. Great find with your clean up, now what is planned for the Liberty?

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  11. Great Stash you have there - nothing like a well organised stash filled with interesting bits and pieces :)

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  12. Lovely stash! How are you cataloguing as you go? Do you have a specific method to the madness? I recently discovered Sew Weekly's Fabric Swatch Template and used that to start the process. Most of my stash is from the pre-baby era of 2006-2009 and was housed in what became the kid's bedroom closet on wire shelving. I finally had to concede the girls' need actual closet space and the nanny and I packed them into under-bed storage bins. I realized I had no idea what I had in the stash so it was time to start! It was very inspiring - and it was harder than I thought to cull!

    I still have one more shelving unit (smaller and in the guest bedroom closet) left to catalogue.

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  13. Extremely covetous of your Liberty prints.

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  14. I came late to your stash post, but your results are beautiful! I too am anal and fold my stash fabrics like that; I actually measured each piece and put a swatch of each in a binder with the details. Yowza, 550 yards! Excuse, gotta go sew something!

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