Monday, September 24, 2012

My Name is LadyKatza and I'm a Fabricoholic


If you haven't seen Marina's post about "10 Signs that you are a Fabricoholic", go read that then come back.

Ok, ok, this is probably a running joke among anyone with a passion for sewing.  Its probably a running joke among our children on "What are we going to with all this fabric when Mom's gone?".   After my Mother-in-Law retired she realized that her sewing budget was pretty much non-existent, so gave up fabric for Lint. No, I'm not kidding. She hasn't bought new fabric in two years, has an entire room full of fabric and managed to make 50 (YES 50) vests for the church play with her stash.  I think she gets the award for "best stash busting project ever".  Somewhere in the bowels of my computer is a photo of my three year old daughter sitting in a huge box full of buttons in her sewing room. She has STACKS of boxes filled with vintage lace, zippers, buttons, and so on (Much of it comes from her mother, who was a seamstress for the RTW industry up until she retired, back before all that went overseas).  Honestly, I try to raid her stash for those things before buying anything new.

I thought I was doing pretty well in controlling the urge to buy fabric, but I was wrong. I just added up all my expenditures from the last year on fabric alone. I almost had a heart attack. I'm not sure I've spent that much on CLOTHING in a year. Shoes, maybe. Not clothing. In fact, I took stock of what is in my closet and most of my clothing is between 2-10 years old and still wearable. I kind of take a long-term outlook on my purchases. But not fabric buying. In fact, here's a photo I pulled off my phone of this summer's fabric haul alone:

So much!
Uh. Yeah. *sighs*

So this brings me to the point I ended up making to myself with crunching numbers. I haven't exactly been editorial with my sewing. As Mrs. Sewaholic put it, "too much icing".  I'm probably a bit better than many on this, as I have pieces that are versatile and go through heavy rotation. I need to think more about why those are in rotation and plan in that direction. Hoping on  Sunni's bandwagon of making companion pieces for the NWG (never worn garments, or orphans, as I like to call them) in her closet.

So stay tuned, I'm gonna come up with a game plan here shortly and share it with you.  Also, I've done a lot of re-organizing and plan to do some more.  I'm hoping I get new shelves for my cutting table sometime around Christmas.  I've got a few Before and After photos. And I haven't forgotten about Halloween!  I still have to write-up and send out my interviews, then pester people nicely to get them back to me.

So what are you doing to try and curb the fabric buying impulse?

4 comments:

  1. I've put a ban on buying fabric until the end of the year. Actually, I've brought that ban in three times, and broken it three times, the most recently not less than 6 hours ago. *sigh*
    I keep telling myself that my stash is waaaaay smaller than most peeps (I've only been sewing for just over a year) so it's ok, but that's a bit like kilo creep. A little bit here... a little bit there... and WHAMMO!
    I really, REALLY need to keep that promise to myself.
    And your fabric pile looks delish. I would totally roll around in it.

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    1. I am not ashamed to admit I have entire large container of nothing but silk! And wool... and I have expensive taste. I think my plan is going to be "make x amount before buying any more".

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  2. I'd like to say that I have a plan, but I'm a bad, bad person. If I sew somethign from my stash I feel like I deserve to wedge a new piece or two into the spot....I need therapy.

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  3. Oh, you are so brave to actually add up how much you've spent on sewing! I honestly cannot do it because I'm horribly afraid of what the answer will be. I am curbing my fabric hopping after this weekend because there are pieces of fabric that need to be bought for my Halloween costume and for making a little girl's Halloween costume. I don't have these pieces in my stash, so off to Vogue Fabrics I go! And then I'll be done from buying fabric. All I want is for all my fabric to fit into one closet, and I'm sure I can pull that off if I don't buy fabric for six months. We'll see how long that actually lasts!

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