I spend the last few weeks staring at my fabric stash trying to figure out what I have, how long I have had some of those fabrics, and what can I do to organize it. I can't keep buying fabric! Or can I!!! LOL! My space is limited. The room is 10x10 but the shelves are only 36 inches long and 18 inches deep and 8 feet high. The size of a hall closet. I have over spill in my hallway in six drawer organizer full to exploding. Instead of rummaging through my stash I buy more. I have spend a week sorting and putting the colors into clear plastic tubs. Now I don't have enough shelves but at least i can grab the colors I need without an avalanche of fabric falling to the ground! I have more fabric than I could possibly use in what is left of my lifetime. Hopefully will get to quilt more when I retire in 5 yrs.
My stash is a history of my past life in fabric. I know that some of that fabric is from the mid 90's all the way up to the present. The reason there is nothing earlier is because I moved from NJ to Upstate NY in 1995 and left all my fabric behind. I have been sewing since I was 8 yrs old. I never made a quilt, always clothing. In 1995 I met an artist, her name was Kit. I told her that I was interested in making a quilt but was fearful that I would not be able to do it correctly. She said "Just do it" and the rest is history.
Many of my fabrics are remanents of old projects that I don't even remember. Wasn't big on doing a photo history then. Others, I don't know what I was thinking when I bought it, or if I was the one that actually bought that mauve floral fat quarter. Still I can't seem to part with the "uglies" in the stash. I found cheddar colored fabric in my stash. I keep trying to get fat quarters of this hard to find color as soon as I see it. Apparently I have done this several times and forgotten. It is one of those colors that makes things pop but too much is overkill....and there it was all the time hiding under a mountain of yellow and gold.
Why do I want to get organized now? Simply put, I want to create my own designs. So many ideas floating in my head but have only tried to do my own thing a few times. I follow patterns like everyone else then change them half way through because that is not really what I wanted it to look like in the first place. So getting my palette ready was my first duty.
Here is a Church that I designed for a hospice patient I was taking care of 1998. She was a preachers wife and was in her 90's. We had decided to move to Florida and I wanted to give her something that would be special to her and that she would want to keep. It was approximately 14 x 14 machine pieced and quilted.
It was a labor of love. I did the the fences and vines with specialty stitches on my sewing machine. Her vision was poor. I was afraid that she would not be able to see it well. She touched everything in the quilt and describe the details back to me. Later she asked if it was okay to frame it. I was very happy that she loved it as much as I loved making it.
Aileen
