I want to say upfront that I know I'm extremely lucky to have been able to buy so many lovely pieces, and I realise this might all come across as #firstworldproblems, but like a lot of people I'm trying to get my consumption under control, and to be open about how I'm doing it.
Also, while I personally want a little less fabric in my life/house, I'm not judging those of you who enjoy having a lovely big stash/ fabric collection. If you want to reduce it, though, then you might find some hints in this post. I'm only just starting to get on top of things myself, but I think I'm making good progress so far.
State of the stash
I've been telling myself, and my boyfriend, that my stash is "modest" for some time now. It fits in two drawers plus one shelf, and I know that there are loads of people out there with more fabric than me. But, number one, the drawers are big, and number two, I just figured out that I have about 55m of woven fabric. For the record, 10.5m are made up of gifts and freebies, but 45m is still excessive given my output. Also, I have another 9.1m on the way, because Maud's Fabric Finds is having a closing down sale (terrible news!).
To be honest, I'm actually a bit surprised that I've let myself accumulate so much fabric. I'm really indecisive when I'm fabric shopping, and I already make a conscious effort to try to use what I have first. After doing a bit of soul searching, I've identified a few factors that have let things get to this point, and have compiled a list of...
Six reasons why my fabric stash is so big
Overbuying
Obviously, but specifically buying too much of each individual fabric. I generally have enough leftover to make a top after each project, because I get nervous, and...I buy without having a project in mind
This is an obvious one, I guess, but if I knew what I was going to make at the time of buying, then I wouldn't have 2-3m of everything, "just in case" I want to make a long sleeved circle dress, or something equally extravagant/unlikely.Buying fabric online
I've always been hesitant to buy fabric online unless I'm already familiar with the content, but I've made exceptions for (what looked like) bargain jerseys. A couple of these have turned out to be see-through, and a couple are just not as nice as they looked online, or have the wrong stretch. Even when I've been confident at the time of ordering, some things haven't met my exception - eg. the "Liberty" fabric that's a lot thinner than the rest. This has meant that some fabrics have turned out to be inappropriate for what I had in mind, which is why they've ended up in the stash.I don't buy what I need
On a related note, I think I've been burnt buying knits online so many times that I've just stopped, even though I make a lot of knit projects (and I've compensated by stocking up with wovens).
It's too nice!
I mean, this is the best problem to have, right? Because I like to try out lots of new patterns, I don't want to make up toiles with super nice fabrics, and until recently I didn't really have a clue about how to make things fit my body. Now that I'm getting to grips with "my" alterations, though, I should be less afraid to cut into the good stuff.I haven't been sewing enough
Thanks to becoming disheartened about fitting, my productivity has been quite low over the past year. That said, the Stash shrinking app tells me that I've used 14.6m of fabric since the end of May - so if I carry on at that rate I'll be off to Ally Pally in October!
How to shrink a stash?
The next thing to consider is obviously how to get things under control. I've been giving this some thought for a while, and I actually started using this Stash Shrinking spreadsheet a few months ago after hearing about it on Love to Sew (I think most of my blogs are going to involve some pearl of wisdom from the hosts or their guests). It's really easy to use and doesn't require an inventory - you add in fabric as you buy it and as you use it, and set a target along the lines of "for every meter I buy I need to sew two". The spreadsheet will tell you when you can buy fabric, and how much. I was doing pretty well with this until Maud's sale, but now I'm not allowed to buy any fabric until I've sewn up another 10m! My pro tip is to save the spreadsheet in Google Drive so that you can access it anywhere.
Anyway, the tool is great and has helped me to make a start, but counting it all up made me want to be more strict with myself.
So, *drum roll*, here are my 2 rules, based on the list above:
- No woven fabrics until my stash is HALVED. To keep things simple I'm going to say that my stash is 65m, and I need to sew up 33m before I can buy more wovens. For me, that will work out at about 30 tops, or 15 dresses.
- No jersey buying without swatches
The only exception that I'm going to make is for stretch-woven fabric. I want to make the Sasha trousers and only have 2m of stretch denim - once I toile them and know exactly how much I need, I might let myself buy a little more stretch denim, but only after ordering samples.
I'll set up some rules for buying wovens once I hit my 33m goal, but for now I'm not going to worry about it because, let's face it, this is going to keep me occupied for the foreseeable future.
This is going to be...
... Great! I was pretty anxious when I realised how much I have, but I feel a lot better now that have identified my triggers and made a plan. If you're feeling stressed by your stash then I'd highly recommend sitting down and getting to grips with what you have, and why you buy.
No comments :
Post a Comment