Forever Not So Much

Very surprised to hear that Bluprint (formerly Craftsy) has decided to call it quits, according to CEO John Levisay. Now that everyone is sewing at home I thought they'd survive the pandemic.

Since being sold to NBCUniversal the online craft supply and class source has consistently jacked up prices and reduced the quality and quantity of their video offerings, which may have factored in. I was never much tempted to subscribe to their online class service, as they only allowed you to keep a minimal amount "forever" -- which now obviously is in jeopardy for everyone who did. I did watch one class during one of their free-video weekend promotions, but it wasn't any better than the free quilting videos you can find on YouTube.

I did buy a couple of quilt kits on sale from the company back when it was still Craftsy, and made one of them into the quilt you see here, but the fabric was very thin, and some of the colors were quite different from what they advertised.

Anyway, just an FYI.

Comments

nightsmusic said…

I never used them. Never saw the need to pay for what I can either do or find for free or at least pay for a la carte and then truly keep forever. It's really a shame how many small companies are going away. :(

May 29, 2020 at 5:19 PM

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Valerean

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