Post fabric purge & my sewing room tour

Soooo...yesterday I wrote about my fabric binge in SD, following my fabric bender in LA.  I flew back to NJ the following day and then....I started purging my fabric stash!    I have been to a LOT of fabric stores this year (NYC four times,  LA, Honolulu, San Diego twice, Royal Oak, San Francisco) and have purchased a LOT of fabric.  It was like my own personal version of "no fabric left behind".  Since 2012 I have been shipping my fabric back home from my travels so I was no longer limited by weight like I was in 2010 and 2011.  And I haven't been sewing as much, in 2013 so the fabric has been piling up.  I live in a 2 bedroom townhouse and am lucky that one of those bedrooms is my sewing room.  I don't have a garage or a basement, and I don't have any walk in closets, so storage is at a premium. I like to keep all my sewing stuff in my sewing room, and specifically all the fabric in the closets in the sewing room.  This year the fabric was piled up on a table against the wall in the sewing room, and on top of the dryer, under the bathroom sink, and most recently in the hall closet.

I started purging Sunday night, then purged in earnest almost all day on Black Friday.  Seriously, I was purging all afternoon and evening.   EmilyKate had written a post ages ago questioning why she is hanging on to fabric that doesn't inspire her, which has returned to my brain now and then.  It's time to free the old fabric that I've had for years now, and also to release some of the crummier bargain fabric, and fabric that no longer suits my style....including some of the fabric I bought a scant 2 years ago!

  Finally, this is what it looks like.  All the fabric is in the closet.  All the fabric for muslins is in the hall closet. There is no fabric on top of the dryer, no fabric under the bathroom sink. But the fabric from LA and SD is still on its way....I will need to do some more purging to make it fit....


My two closets in my sewing room.

The left hand closet, with my fabric sorted by type, my buttons, and a bucket with my large wax tracing paper.  Now it is much easier to handle the tracing paper, and I can lift the whole bucket out of the closet and see the fabric behind it.


Here is a closer pic of the left closet.  I prefer sorting by fabric type as opposed to sorting by fabric color.  It works better for me when I'm trying to choose fabric to go with a pattern.

Here is the closet on the right, with my patterns, books, corduroy and denim fabric.  There's also lingerie elastic, hangers, mailing envelopes and a lot of the little tote bags I've made for PR weekends.  Oh and a basket of muslins.


And while we're at it, here's the rest of my sewing room.

My desk

A closer shot of my machines and my "inspiration wall"

My Ikea cutting table (with my cutting mats) and my Ikea chest of drawers with my thread, piping, trims, ribbons, etc. It's cut off but on top of the drawers is a little basket with patterns I want to sew soon (bwah ha ha).  Jacqui, you can see Upstairs Hal in this picture too!


Here's the final wall.  That's where a lot of the fabric used to be stacked up.  I temporarily put my mirror there--it is usually between the two closets on top of the step stool.  You can see my dressform Izzy and my ironing board.  Two of the lamps in my room were salvaged from the dumpsters at Princeton.  The junk under the table is my modem and router and an empty safe, ha ha.

Maybe someday this is where my future Elna press will go?   A girl can dream.

So I could make a fabric fasting pledge but I'm not going to.  Just retracting my spending/buying somewhat until I start sewing more again.  There are 7 more months to go on my big work project (it has been 13 months already!  7 more left)  so I don't know how much sewing I will be able to do anyway.  On the plus side, it helps that my next big trip isn't until PR weekend in Austin at the start of May.  TexStyles is an awesome fabric store and I'm sure I will buy a lot there.

My next post I will write about fabric I still want, as odd as it may sound.

I will say that I did not succumb to any of the fabric emails in my inbox this weekend.  So many offers of discounts on fabric and I didn't buy an inch!  Having all the fabric I'm donating in my living room helped a lot.   The donation service is not coming til Dec 20....

Be well!

Spring Cleaning the fabric & pattern stash

I've seriously been spring cleaning.  I don't know what came over me, but the desire to organize, fix, rearrange, and tidy has taken over.   Burned out lightbulbs have been replaced, broken drawers have been fixed, the living room closet avalanche has been cleared.  

The fabric cubes in the fabric closet (which I showed you last June) were slowly self-destructing and collapsing.  Clearly the cubes were not meant for holding yards upon yards of fabric at a time. So I braved Home Depot and bought new shelving. 

Ta-da!


Here's the annotated view:


 I wish I could say that's all of my fabric, but there's another third of a closet of fabric in another closet.

I also purged patterns today.

I don't know if I'll bring all 10 pounds of purged patterns with me to pattern review weekend for the pattern exchange, but we'll see. I still need to reorganize the patterns/book/"remainder of my fabric" closet. That closet is also self destructing, though the patterns are all organized, phew.

By going through patterns and fabric in the same weekend, I've reconnected with some pieces and patterns I've totally forgotten about. I've reorganized the stash once again in a way that makes more sense. I found failed projects that I will now dump, and I laughed at myself. I also realize how far I have come with my sewing in the 5 years since I started getting serious about sewing again.  Each of those failed projects was a step toward me becoming a better sewist.  And I now have a list of stuff I want to buy in NYC!

I found a scrap of Nick and Nora flannel that I sewed up this afternoon into a little pillowcase for a small Ikea pillow I use while reading in bed. I love the featherstitching on my machine, which I sewed in three rows to be decorative.  the pillow is maybe 14x9 or something, here's part of it:

Here is a closer view:

You can also see the next pattern I want to sew. I saw it on Kathy's blog. Maybe next Saturday the dream will become a reality?

Here are my brand new cards for Pattern Review weekend. I bought them from moo.com.  I felt the tights and Mary Janes summed me up nicely. 

Ok, hopefully I'll have some garment sewing to show you next time!
Be well!!