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Did mommy take away your wubbie or what?
Jun. 16th, 2007 09:24 amAnyone who feels the need to hoard more fabric than they can ever possibly use in their own natural lifetime is suffering from some bizarre mental pathology and requires counseling. They are also preventing the rest of the fabric buying population from having a reasonable and legitimate shot at acquiring what we need for our own modest purposes, all because they have selfishly squirrelled it away in their home equivalent of the warehouse from the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." You know the ones, they sport bumperstickers bearing the legend "The one who dies with the most fabric wins!" They have an entire room - or more - devoted to their stash. I don't know which is scarier: the jumbled dragon's hoard which is so disorganized that they must go out and buy more fabric because they will never find the 80 yard roll of chemise linen they got on sale - or the anally neat rows and shelves with index cards that have swatches glued to them so they know exactly what's in each box.
I do not have a "stash." I have a project pile. It is the equivalent of two department store shopping bags full of uncut fabric. It is not allowed to get larger than that. If I buy something and do not use it for more than a year, I try to trade it to a friend because I obviously did not love it enough to make something out of in the first place.
I say "try" because I once traded five yards of exquisitely gorgeous silk suiting to someone. That silk had birthdays before she traded me back five yards of relentlessly plain blue linen so unremarkable that I am probably going to donate it to the next silent auction because I don't like it enough to make something out of it. Why? Because her stash had to be organized first. At which point, we kept forgetting. At which point, I didn't care what she gave me because I just wanted to get out of a room which was making me twitch on basic principle.
There is also another bag full of scraps and remnants, because you never know when you might have to dress a monkey.
I know what I have.
I know what I'm going to use it for.
I stay within my budget.
It ultimately gets used or goes away.
I can find stuff when I want it.
It's not taking over my home.
It's not taking over my life. That's what the books are for.
I do not have a "stash." I have a project pile. It is the equivalent of two department store shopping bags full of uncut fabric. It is not allowed to get larger than that. If I buy something and do not use it for more than a year, I try to trade it to a friend because I obviously did not love it enough to make something out of in the first place.
I say "try" because I once traded five yards of exquisitely gorgeous silk suiting to someone. That silk had birthdays before she traded me back five yards of relentlessly plain blue linen so unremarkable that I am probably going to donate it to the next silent auction because I don't like it enough to make something out of it. Why? Because her stash had to be organized first. At which point, we kept forgetting. At which point, I didn't care what she gave me because I just wanted to get out of a room which was making me twitch on basic principle.
There is also another bag full of scraps and remnants, because you never know when you might have to dress a monkey.
I know what I have.
I know what I'm going to use it for.
I stay within my budget.
It ultimately gets used or goes away.
I can find stuff when I want it.
It's not taking over my home.
It's not taking over my life. That's what the books are for.
