Making progress

 I have been making a lot of progress on refolding my fabrics.  I got all 3 of the shelves in one bookcase folded and stacked.

There was a box in Shed 2, that had fabric in it.  I thought it was all fabric, but when I went to get some of it out to fold and add to shelf 3, I found out it was only "filler" for the box.  There were only 28 pieces of fabric in there, so I got those folded and added to the bottom shelf.
I know there is more fabric hiding somewhere, because I haven't found some fabric I had purchased for a couple of embroidered quilts I want to make.  I have more boxes to unpack in Shed 2, so I'm sure I will find it, just have to get those boxes open and see what is in them.

This is the other bookcase full of fabric I need to work on.

On Saturday, I started on the solids on shelf 3 of this one, I didn't take a picture of it yet, I wanted to wait until I got the rest of my solids folded. 

I hadn't planned on doing all the refolding at once, but as I got going on it, I thought it would be a good idea to do it all, so when I find more fabric, I will have a place to put it, rather than just piling it up on a chair or the floor.

While I have the fabric on my table to refold it, I have been measuring it.  A group of quilters were doing this last year, to find out how much they had in their stash, and to keep track of what comes in and what goes out.  I thought it would be fun to keep track of mine, so decided that since I needed to refold all my fabric anyway, might as well measure it.
In the first bookcase I got finished, I have 379.5 yards of fabric.  The solids I have folded so far total 54 yards.   It will be interesting to see how much I have, once I find it all, and then see if I can have more going out than coming in. 

Once I get all my boxes unpacked, and most of my stuff organized, I will be setting goals for how much I want to use from my stash by getting quilt tops or bags made.  I have been collecting ideas for some quilt blocks that I want to make, and making a list of what I need to cut in order to sew them.  When I start to organize my scraps, I should have a number of blocks/quilts I can start cutting for, so that I can start to get some of that out of my stash.  The sooner I get my yardage folded, and the boxes in shed 2 unpacked, the sooner I can start organizing my scraps and get back to sewing.

Should I or Shouldn't I?

Recently I've been reading some blogs, where people are measuring the fabric in their stash, and keeping track of what comes in and goes out.  I've been thinking that it would be fun to join in, and start keeping track of how much fabric I have.  The problem is, I'm not sure I want to measure everything I have.  Since everything is packed up right now, it might be a great time to measure it all as I unpack it.  However,  if I stop to measure it all, it could take me much to longer to get my studio unpacked and set up.  If I put everything on the shelves, then I would have to take the time to pull it off, and measure it later, and that takes time away from being able to actually sew.


There was talk of weighing it, instead of measuring it. Which most have said is fairly accurate, to within a half yard or so. And it would take a lot less time to put a stack of fabric on a scale, vs unfolding, measure, then refold. That would still take more time than just taking it out of the boxes and putting it on a shelf. But that sounds like it is something I could do with out slowing me down too much in the unpacking.  

I know I'm going to have to take time to organize my fabric no matter if I measure or weigh it before putting it on my shelves.  But do I want to take more time, to find out how much fabric I have??  I can see by looking at it, that it's a lot.  Do I need to know the yardage??  Will knowing how much fabric I have motivate me to use it more? 

With the cost of everything going up, including fabric, I tell myself that I was buying as a hedge against inflation. Even while I was working, I would justify my purchases by saying, I may not be able to buy as much once I retire.  But if I'm not using it, was it really a good purchase?  Spending money on something you aren't using, isn't a good use of your money.

Before our move, I was doing better at using my stash, and not buying anything, unless I needed it for a project I was actively planning or working on.  I was able to walk into a quilt store, and not feel the need to buy yards and yards because the fabric was just too pretty to leave in the store or even worse, it was on sale, and I couldn't get it at that price again.  

Since I'm not close to any quilt stores now, I think it will be really easy to keep using my stash before running out and purchasing more fabric.  Of course, my stash has some areas where I lack a lot of variety, and I may need to supplement what I have if I'm using those colors in a quilt.   However, if I want to go to a quilt store now,  I would have to plan a day to go into town.  If I were to buy online, I don't want to buy just a yard or two, or even a few FQs, I would want to get as much as I could for the shipping charges, so I would buy more than I really needed, so it's easy for me to say no to buying online.    

I think I will not measure or weigh my fabric, I do like the idea of keeping track of what comes in and goes out. I would like to be able to look back over time and see that I used more than I purchased, and I think that is something I will be able to keep track of, especially since I won't be buying a lot.

I will leave you with a quilt I designed in Electric Quilt 8.  I wanted to create a quilt with the grey and off white fabric that I purchased.  Both were End of Bolt purchases, so I couldn't get more, and the project I purchased it for, I decided to do something different.  So I needed to come up with a project to use the amount of fabric I had, and by adding in the red, I had enough of both to create this quilt.  My plan is to bind it in red, and if I don't have enough, or I can't find it, I know what the fabric line is, so I should be able to buy more when I get this quilted.

 

 

Until next time... Happy Crafting!!