I have been thinking about my fabric lately. It is hard not to think about my fabric. First of all, I love it and second of all, it is where I can see, at least some of, it all the time.
I have been thinking about fabric over the last year, in general, on a lot of different levels:
- terminology
- how much yardage should I buy?
- do I have enough fabric?
- do I need to add to what I have in order to have a wide range of colors?
- do I need to add to what I have in case the manufacturers stop making that perfect shade of turquoise?
- do I need to add to what I have in order to keep my inspiration high?
- do I still like the fabric that I have bought in the past and haven’t used yet?
- what happens if I can’t add to what I have?
- is shopping for fabric a stress relieving mechanism?
Terminology
Stash – this is the most common way quiltmakers refer to their supplies of fabric. I wonder why? I wonder who first called their fabric a stash? I wonder if calling it a stash was a joke that got out of hand? When I think of a stash, it has a negative connotation. I don’t hide my fabric in a baggie in the toilet so my parents won’t find it. I also have a stash of emergency cash on me, which isn’t really negative, but does imply poor planning or organizational skills.
None of those things really suggest that fabric buying or, by association, quiltmaking are positive activities.
Finally, buying fabric, as many others have pointed out, is not illegal and it doesn’t hurt anyone. For myself, touching, pressing, playing with fabric really reduces my stress level.
Palette – for a long time, I tried to call my fabric supplies ‘my palette’. I was diligent, but eventually gave up because people had no idea what I was talking about. A lot of them thought I was talking about a wooden thing with paint on it. Painters have it made. They have their palette, they put paint on it and everyone knows what they are talking about.
Fabric Collection – TFQ has a fabric collection. She buys fabric as a collection. We have discussions about the subject often. She may buy a fabric that she just wants to for her collection while I really try to buy fabric if it is something I think I will use. I have to admit that some conversationals are so fun-hilarious-cheerful etc that I can’t not buy them.
Fabric vs. Material – when I was a kid my mom would take us to House of Fabric which was in a mall called the Laurel Plaza (I liked a fast food-ish, but not a chain, restaurant there with great blue tropical shakes as well as dried puffer fish hanging from the ceiling) and we would buy some material to make a dress or outfit or something.
Now I only buy fabric.
I don’t know why I don’t call it material anymore. I think ‘material’ isn’t specific enough. If I say “I need some material for my project” someone could think that I wanted to buy some paper for a scrapbook project or metal for my most recent welding project. Perhaps material is a regional term and people don’t use it where I now live?
Size and Shape
I was listening to Brye Lynn’s podcast (still catching up) recently. One of her podcasts talked about the quiltmakers’ Fabric Stash (episode 8). It got me thinking about how much fabric I buy. Up until I started making tote bags at an alarming rate, I always bought half yards and FQs nad that was plenty.
Now, when I buy fabric specifically destined to be a tote bag, I buy at least 2 yards and sometimes 3. That is more than I need for most tote bag projects, but I like to have enough for the straps and a FOTY piece and to screw up. Brye Lynn said that the minimum that she has seen recommended to buy is a yard and then if you REALLY like it you should buy two yards. Hhhmmm.
Well, if I buy a yard as a basic rule, then I would only have half or quarter the variety of fabric I have now.
Half yards are starting not to be enough. I have a whole list of pieces I have to cut before a piece of fabric is filed into my fabric closet. For blue FQs, they rarely even make it to the fabric closet. I have so many blue pieces to cut (a 6.5″ square, a 2.5″x4.5″ rectangle, a diamond, a Tumbler, etc) that a FQ is just not enough. The above FQ may be a little bit misleading because it was larger than a normal FQ. Not much bigger, but enough.
Half yards are not enough for most bags, but they are enough for straps for a bag. I have adapted half yards for a bag, but it makes me wonder if I need to purchase fabric with bags in mind and not just quilts? Buying a yard of fabric regularly is a lot more of financial investment as well.
The Whys of it All
- do I have enough?
- do I need to add to what I have in order to have a wide range of colors?
- do I need to add to what I have in case the manufacturers stop making that perfect shade of turquoise?
- do I need to add to what I have in order to keep my inspiration high?
Well, if I don’t have enough fabric, then there is no such thing as enough. I have less fabric than others. Still, you saw all the things I made last year. I did not make a dent in what I have.
Adding to my fabric selection choices is interesting, because I have enough, in terms of physical quantity. However, I often seem not to have the right colors. No matter how many colors I buy, I often don’t have the right color. I am coming to the conclusion that buying more colors is futile. I am not going to stop buying fabric, but I am going to buy without the goal of having ALL the colors.
I have also been caught with my quilt pants down and not had enough fabric (remember the Windham fabric?), so perhaps I need to buy larger quantities of fabric? The FOTY project has helped in learning which fabrics really work in the projects I make. Perhaps I will start a project to convince fabric manufacturers it would be to their benefit to upload their out of print fabrics to Spoonflower.
New fabric does get me excited about quiltmaking. I do think that I need to shift my inspiration from cash outlay to books, as in read books and don’t use my credit cards. I will probably never be able to stop buying fabric, nor do I want to stop buying fabric, but I need to be aware of what I am trying to accomplish when looking for inspiration.
Is Shopping for Fabric a Stress Relieving Mechanism?
Definitely. That reality is good and bad. On the positive side, I have a legal way of relieving stress that also, as an added bonus, keeps small businesses open and helps the economy. If the stress is bad, it can be really expensive and if I don’t have money my stress just continues. I have to admit that I do have other methods of stress relief.
I don’t think I have any answers for anyone but myself. I am curious what you think about fabric.
I don’t think stash has a negative connotation but then I learned the word before I heard it in connection with the word drug. Do you like the term cache better?
I like 1.25 yards because they are square. I have no more room for fabric though so I am not buying without a near term use. Now that I have so many fat quarters from the mail, if I have five then I have 1.25 yards, but it is not square. It makes things more interesting but it is more work to use multiple fabrics when one will do. And I do know that that is the objection the uninitiated have against quilting in the first place, we are cutting up perfectly fine fabric just to sew it back together again.
If fabric can’t be called material then how can I still be a material engineer when I retire? I agree it is a less specific term.
Chocolate and tea and friends are almost as good as fabric to relieve stress for me. Chocolate and tea and friends all together are very effective when the admirals meeting didn’t go as well as it could have.
I want to revisit this posting on another day, and comment more, but my child has been quite patient, waiting to use my computer. Before I do though, I had to comment on this one thing. Recently it has crossed my mind, regarding having a stash (or cache) of fabrics, that a fabric collection for “us” is like others who have collections of teapots, or toy cars, or dolls, or bottle caps, or cookbooks, or elephant statues…I think we can be “just” collectors of fabric. JUST because it is useful in other ways, doesn’t mean we HAVE to be practical about having this particular “collection”…right? 🙂
stash
vb
Informal: to put or store (money, valuables, etc) in a secret place, as for safekeeping
n
1. Informal: a secret store or the place where this is hidden
2. (Law / Recreational Drugs) Slang drugs kept for personal consumption
I don’t like the term stash because, as the dictionary definitions imply, it refers to something that needs to be kept secret. (Although I do like the “valuables” part of that.) I think the term stash came in along with all those discussions about fabric being kept hidden/secret/out of sight of husbands/partners who would disapprove of the amount or even fact of fabric not meant for an immediate project.
I do have a fabric collection, although it’s a small part of the volume of fabric that I own. The collection is really the 4″ squares I’ve been collecting for about 20 (!!!) years now. The rest of it is… just my fabric. Like other stuff that I own. I don’t have a clothing collection; I have clothes. I don’t have a pots and pans collection; I have pots and pans. I don’t have a stash or a fabric collection; I have fabric… which I sometimes use, and sometimes don’t, but which always gives me a lot of pleasure.
Lately I’ve been hearing a lot of comments from people who feel guilty because their “stash” has gotten too big. Guilty! Ha! Murders and drug dealers should feel guilty about what they do, but I’m certainly not about to feel guilty about owning a lot of fabric…
Twenty years ago, when I took a stack of bolts of fabric to the cutting counter and asked for a half yard of each, I would be asked “What are you going to do with all that fabric?” I would reply “Why do I have to do anything with it?” I’m paying for it, it’s not illegal to own it, and it’s nobody’s business what I do or don’t do with it! Yes, I have an extensive fabric collection – and I’m thinning it out a bit these days, but I figure I have enough to quilt with until I’m about 300 yrs old, should I happen to live that long and still have my faculties. This does not mean I will not buy more, of course!
If I get tired of the colors I have, I can dye them, paint over them, bleach them, wrap strips around rope, pleat it, cover it in thread, twist it, bead it, or whatever… and it ‘ain’t nobody’s business but my own!” as the song goes.
Perhaps it there is guilt involved because in many people’s eyes, you are supposed to actually USE fabric. To have it just because it has irises on it, or because it is such a pretty shade of purple, or because it would make a nice quilt “someday”, or because it was on sale, or because you don’t keep enough yellow on hand…..all that isn’t a good enough excuse in the practical world.
I am not saying one should feel guilty about having a stash or collecting a bunch of fabric though. I was just liking it to collecting Match Box Cars because you just like to do that. You might never actually play with the cars, but just look at them. Some fabric is like that too. You enjoy looking at it.
Society and practical upbringing are more so the culprits. “Why don’t you use the fabric you already have? You have enough fabric to choke a horse, why do you need more? What are you going to do with THAT fabric?” and so on.
btw, I USED to buy into the feelings of practicality enforced on my brain by a practical upbringing and later a very frugal (now ex) husband. I don’t any more! I DO like thinking of my stash as a collection of pretty things that I really really like! In my little mind, it makes it easier to accept that I have a bunch of fabric that I will probably never ever use! Not that there is anything wrong with that…not anymore! 😀
I think of stash as kind of a fun/funky word – it certainly doesn’t imply shame to me. However, I do feel guilty about the impracticality of the amount of fabric that I buy. I probably buy fabric about 10 times faster than I use it. I see people online talking about their stash and making beautiful things and I somehow think that in order to make great stuff I have to have a great stash.
I really like the idea of being able to make things purely from my stash fabrics… but you know what? It hardly ever works out that way. I can go to the fabric store and shop and shop and not find all of the fabrics that I need for a project, so why should I expect to be able to do that from my stash? Like you, I’ve come to the conclusion that trying to increase the breadth of my stash is futile. I DEFINITELY cannot fit a fabric store’s worth of fabric in my sewing room, never mind the cost.
For now, I’m trying to limit the amount of new fabric that I buy. I’ve capped my random fabric purchases at $50 per month (yeah, that actually is cutting back…). Fabric purchases for specific projects do not fall under that rule, but they have to be far enough along in the planning stages for me to know how much fabric I need to buy, otherwise they get counted under random fabric purchases.