3.05.2009

Stash Organization

I have been wanting to organize my fabric stash since we left Columbus.  I have had 3 bins of fabric, maybe 4 bins of fabric stuffed into 3 bins, for at least 3 years.  Every-time I need a particular color or print I dig out all 3 bins, dig and dig and dig until my entire bedroom is covered in scraps of fabric.  Once I even went to be to find a fat quarter had snuck under my pillow.  I have fabric everywhere,  I think it multiplies.  I am not an impulse buyer of fabric.  I buy what I need for a project, maybe a little more than I need "just in case." Seldom do I buy fabric or yarn just because I like it.  I need a purpose for said item. 
  Wednesday I set out to organize my fabric stash, yarn will just have to wait.  I pulled out the fabric bins and started sorting.  I sorted by colors with piles of  fabric mounding nicely.  After an hour I my piles were not looking so much like piles.  Perhaps they were once piles, now it looked more like a rainbow where the colors had run together.  I took a look at what I had and I had 2 garbage bags of unusable scraps. TWO.  Why did I continue to save piles of scraps no bigger than 2 inches!  I have no idea.  Maybe if I was into applique I could have justified this.  Since the applique process and I do not get along, I have no clue what I was doing with that many tiny scraps.  Ok, so those went out to the actual garbage and not back into the bins.  I felt so wasteful.  It was as if I would be taken into fabric police headquarters because I had wasted fabric.  "Surly that scrap there could be used for something?"  I found I had to keep telling myself, "you don't really need a scrap of black that is that small."  But, I might.  Right?  No.  No you don't.  So on went the sorting.
 I had remnants from every quilting project I have ever done.  WOW.  Now that surprised me.  I kept on task and managed to sort all 3 bins.  Now instead of 3 large bins I have 9 small bins.  I went to put them into my craft closet and they didn't fit!!  Hey, now.  I took 2 garbage bags out I should have the room.  I should have the room and enough room to add more fabric.  This was not the outcome I had envisioned.  This could be the reason I am not big on organization.  Did I truly organize, or did I just shuffle fabric in some random way?  Is stash organization just an illusion?  Is it an oxymoron? I am not sure.  The only thing I know is I should have never thrown out those scraps!  It seems as if I must have angered the fabric gods after all. 

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