Material Analysis

I've been working with Fabscrap recycled fabrics for a couple of months, and I've had a lot of fun, too. This is everything I have left over from the November challenge. As with any resource I have some opinions about how valuable it is, as well as the drawbacks. I also need to be practical about what I want to use, what I can use, and what will likely be difficult for me to use.

The quality has been consistently outstanding. All of the scraps are in new or very good condition. Much of the fabric I've got in all the different scrap packs is more toward the dark end of the color spectrum, however. I didn't realize how much I've gravitated toward using lighter fabrics until I starting sorting the scraps according to what I liked most. That will guide my buying choices when I go back to shop for more (probably not for a while; I've got a lot of fabric now.)

I really love the lace. The quality, the variety, the colors -- I can't say anything bad about the lace scrap pack. I definitely have a lace quilt to design next year.

I also liked the white scrap pack very much. I think white is going to be the most versatile scrap fabric for me, especially with my art quilting, as I'm planning to try eco-dyeing in 2023.

I sorted out all the different types of fabrics, and in the end I made two boxes: fabric I'll definitely use next year (left) and fabric to challenge my creativity (right). I plan to take scraps from both on a regular basis next year and see what I can make of them.

It's wonderful to be able to save these fabrics from landfills, but there's a responsibility that goes along with that. I need to make use of them. Stay tuned to see how I do.

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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.

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...

Valerean

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