Moving my fabric & sewing rooms
 

Last week my hubs hit me with the following statement.
"I am thinking about moving my desk, and the computers
along with anything else I have on my side of the living room.
Going to move your fabric and stuff out of the second bedroom.
This will put ALL of your fabric, sewing stuff together in one
general area."

So since he had a 4 day weekend (Friday thru Monday), he proceeded
to make the move.

This weekend I decided it was well PAST time to downsize all my
fabric again. I used to do this 2 times a year, but haven't for about
3-4 years.

This The photos below show about HALF my fabric. There is about
24+ bins of fabric (including the ones hidden). The rest of the bins
are in the process of being brought out for me to stack.
This is going to be a LONG project trying to go through all the fabric.


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Behind ALL the bins in the second photo is a fireplace that we
have NEVER used.

Don't fall for this!!! He just wants to see your stash. lol

Oh my!! You have a job ahead of you! I had this going on..I finally went the wrapping on comic board route and bought book shelves. I found myself buying new fabric instead of sorting thru all the bins. I can now see what I have, (besides lots of shelves) and do find myself looking thru stash first. Good luck.

He KNOWS about my stash.......LOL

At least what he can see which is about 90% of it.

I have been TRYING to put my fabric on the comic boards for awhile.
But so far they are only making their way into boxes and bins until I
shelving so I can put them on.

Call the girls over for a destash party. It will make the chore easier and be more fun.
peace

I don't really have any girl friends close by who could
come help me unload some of this.

On a positive note I have sorted 2 scrap bins, only 4-6
more scrap bins to go. I figured if I could sort all them
into bags (by width size) that it would create some empty
bins to help the sorting of keep, donate etc...

My bags are sorted in the following manner:

2" or less
2"-3-1/2" (but less than 4")
4"+
Christmas
Flannel
Pinks (for a quilt for my oldest daughter)
The first empty bin is for scraps I want to keep for myself.

I have been looking for an excuse to go to Colorado this summer!

As one who does not have a 'stash'...do you do scrappy quilts? Would it be worth forwarding your scraps to someone else perhaps? Leave only the large pieces in your stash? Just to try to tame what you have??? Just a thought.

Purge.you will feel better. I do. I never aspire to have a stash as large as yours. Too overwhelming. I donate a large tradh bag or two every year. 4H learners. Mlocal senior group, etc. Always nice to get rid of pieces that I will never use in my lifetime.

sandy

Material Witness - Come on out, the weather is starting to improve.
At least it will by this summer LOL.


NJ Quilter - No I don't make scrappy quilts, so giving them to
someone who will use them.

Sandygirl - I tried to donate to the senior center (3 different places even)
and they didn't want ANY of the fabric. Haven't received a call back yet
from the 4-H here locally, the one place that seems to want fabric only
wants LQS, which I have little of.

Still looking for other places willing to accept fabric.

I'm in the spring cleaning purge mode also. I purchased space bags and put all my fleece in it, amazing how small that pile got. I'll bring it out again next fall. I'm also contacting my local American Sewing Guild to see if any of their groups do charity sewing and see if I can donate my fabric to them. Otherwise I might just end up buying more space bags and store it until I can find a home for it.

Oh my!!! I envy your stash! it is heaven...

Oh my! Quite the stash!! Perhaps pace yourself: clean out/sort a bin, then sew some, repeat. :)

Louise~I am sitting here drooling over your STASH!! I even showed it to my hubby and said ONE DAY I will be so blessed with fabric!!
You have my address in case you need it... just saying! :)

O M Gosh Louise. That's a very impressive amount of fabric, and it looks like your bins are very labeled and organized.
I'm in Colorado too, just in case you need some help with it. :0) I'll be retiring in November, and plan to spend most of my waking hours making charity quilts and quilts of valor.

Personally I'd tell the hubster to go jump in the lake if he dared to take my sewing room... But you seem to want to destash anyway. I have an idea. With the popularity of scrap quilting these days (thank you Bonnie Hunter!) you could easily SELL your fabric scraps. Sort by color and stuff some gallon ziplocks and sell it by weight or by the bag. If you put them on Ebay they should FLY out of your house and give you some money to buy new things... or maybe batting or whatever you need. If you aren't going to use the scraps, that is.

At least your organized with labels on the plastic totes.

Is there a Linus chapter near by? I'm also trying to purge fabric this year. Got a Horn cabinet & had to move at least 1/2 of my bins & boxes out of the room in order to remove a large dining room table & put the Horn in. So I'm reorganizing & removing many things. It's a slow process & I'm itching to sew.

Quilty-Louise,
If it makes you feel any better, I have an entire room that has floor to ceiling shelves along 2 walls that are filled with fabrics. Then I have large tubs full of more fabrics..and more than 3 (that's all I'm copping to) large boxes that are full.
The walls are all organized. The rest, um, well...
At least I've started going through a lot of it..donating some and I am selling stuff...lol
Just tackle yours the same way that old saying about eating an elephant goes, "One bite at a time.".
Kif

You could take some of the scraps and make doggie/kitty bedding for local animal shelter. I have comic book boards and I keep them at my table. While watching tv I just fold them and put them on the shelf or into the container. I don't always take an iron to them, sometimes just a hand press like folding towels. They kind of press themselves while stacked on top or next to each other.

I got another scrap bin sorted last night after dinner.
Hope to do at least 1 bin a night more if I don't get
to sleepy and call it quits.

If I am having a creative lull I find the sorting and fondling to be inspiring.Have fun sorting that can be such fun too.

I am amazed at the amount of fabric that some of you gals have!! I have been fortunate in that I have purchased some scraps, fabric and selvedges from some Board members. I have some yardage, but most of it is scraps. I do not have any sewing/quilting friends close to where I live, so there is no one to help me go through what I have. My daughter also quilts but she's 130 miles from here, some of my fabrics and things things in my life that my time and efforts, so ------ well, I'm so grateful for what I have. Being a perfectionist doesn't help things along. :) I seem to want to sort, press, and organize, and then change my mind and want to reorganize. Aye yi yi, poor me. :) Will be watching to see the process you're making. I've book marked this page so that I can follow and see your progress. Good luck.

Great guy!!

It's a shame you're so far away. I below to a charity quilt group who takes donated quilt fabric. We made more than 300 lap and baby quilts last year. We give them to hospitals, nursing homes, new Mom's at the Air Force Base in our area, unwed Mother's and anyone in our community who is in need. A smile on a recieptance face can truly brighten you day. Good luck with your huge job!

So far I have sorted 4 bins of fabric, with about 3-4 more to go.
But in my (not so bright) wisdom those bins got buried behind
MANY MANY other bins of yardage.

So now one to the "divide and conquer" of yardage and work my
way through the mess.

I'm totally floored! I thought having about 12 boxes of fabric was a lot, then I see your stash.

Oh my gosh, this happened to me. When my daughter and her two children moved out, I decided to revamp my sewing room so I could move in at least two directions. When all the fabric bins, dressers for storage of craft supplies and other storage bins full of fabric, kits, UFOs, etc got moved, it took up two bedrooms. Don't know how I was ever able to accomplish anything in that crowded sewing room.

QL--I hadn't made a scrappy quilt, well I had started a couple but wasn't impressed with them. Then I discovered Bonnie Hunter. Now I have made a few of them and love 'em. It feels great to use my scraps instead of throwing them away, putting them in a disposable pet bed, etc. Bonnie's methods are easy and encourage us to use those fabrics that are maybe not so pretty or are dated. Fabric is expensive, I like being able to use it all.

Louise, if you live close to me I could help you out a little bit.

oh my.... even in bins urs are much more organized than MY pile.......... i have a designated room (s). I love being able to just shut the door! good luck

GrammaNan - where in CO are you located?

Louise, You have made smile this morning. I thought I was alone in my stash overload. My Mom left me so much fabric it nearly tripled my stash. I don't have mine in see thru storage bins. Mistake number one. They are in solid color Rubbermaid storage bins. I do have a lot of handled see thru bins but not enough to color code. My project for June, now weather is better, is to get to the garage so I can sort all of it. I am having problems finding a local church group that will accept FREE material. Thought this would be a good thing to do with a lot of the fabric my Mom had. At this rate if my kids ever had to sort my belongings they would call me a fabric hoarder. What are your thoughts on making up pillow case kits for a craft and/or garage sale ??? I could take the easy way out and donate it to Salvation Army or Goodwill but would like to see it go to someone who actually will use it. Good Luck with your project. I definitely need to downsize big time........................