I, too, like to pet my favorite fabric and am afraid of using it on the wrong project. But, tartan, you reminded me of a discussion that my mother and I had about twenty years ago.
While eating Sunday dinner at my mom's, I was looking at her China cabinet and all these beautiful dishes and tea cups that she gotten over the years. Many were wedding gifts that she had gotten over 60 years ago. I asked her why she never used them. Her reply was that she was afraid of them getting broken. I thought how sad, and replied to her, "But, mom, I'll just love using them when you are gone; so thanks for taking such good care of them for me." Well, my answer gave her just the impetus she needed to start using them. The next Sunday, we had a beautiful setting of dishes and afterwards we had a lovely tea with all of her special tea cups and from then on the dishes came out on special days and holidays. I'm glad she started using them, because about 10 years later she started to get dementia and now has Alzheimer's and the dishes just sit in the cabinet, again.
Keeping my fabric and being afraid to use it on the wrong project is like having my words come back to bite me in the bottom. So the moral of the story, is I had better get going and start using my favorite fabric before someone else buys in a big garage sale for 25 cents a yard.