Sunday, December 18, 2005

Dusting Stash got me to Thinking

WOW....I dusted 13.5 yds of stash today stitching up 13 pillow cases. I even tallied up the money score on this one. Figuring at the very lowest of prices cause I usually shop the LQS, at $5.98 a yard thats a pretty good chunk of change.

Why do we hoard and accumulate stash? Are the fabric companies going out of business? Is our LQS going on strike? I think not. It seems to take over not only our homes but our lives as well. Our tastes change, colors come and go, the popular patterns fade. Why are we so facinated with collecting every new fabric/gadget/pattern that comes down the pike?

Why do we keep exchanging blocks to put in a drawer with the idea that someday we will make a quilt out of them? I have many more exchange blocks than I will ever want to set into a top let alone turn it into a quilt someday. What am I saving them for, my children to dispose of after I am gone?

Why do we start a quilt or project only to lay it aside for something new and exciting? Do we get bored with the latest new idea because it's not challenging or isn't something we really like but are doing it because everybody else is? Why do we abandon what we are working on when a new pattern comes out or a new fabric we just have to try out and start yet another project that will join all the other unfinished ones?

Why do we buy fabric? Is it for a project and we need it or as we walk down the fabric aisles a fabric catches our eye and reaches out pleading for us to pick it up and take a yard or five? Do you ever feel you want to reclaim your sewing room and move everything you've hauled out to the living room when you haven't anymore space left? I know I am tired of a sewing room that is loaded to the hilt with a closet full of rolling carts of fabric, tubs with yet more fabric, spools and spools of thread when a med gray would do as well. Lace, bias tape, buttons, several cutting matts, more rotary cutters and scissors than one person can use. I'm drowning in quilting gear and can't justify pitching all the extra's.

Is there a law somewhere that says to be a quilter, crafter, sewer we are required to start as many projects as we can and never finish them? Does it say we have to collect so much "stuff" we are litterly drowning in it? Does it say we are not allowed to buy only what we need for the project at hand, to finish that project before starting several new ones?

All these questions were swimming around in my head as I kept dragging out fabrics for my pillowcases. The drawers didn't empty, there is still plenty there. I would pick up a lenth of fabric and think why did I buy this, it's pretty but what am I going to use it for. After all, how many pillowcases can I make and how many can my kids and Gkids use, they last for a long time.

My solution to my delema, to go on a fabric/book/gadget diet. My sewing room has to loose some weight, it's way to fat.

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