Baring it All

I very much enjoy Fiona's Sunday Stash whenever I've gorged on pretties made a well-considered, project-related purchase but that only provides the tiniest glimpse and I've never bared it all. Well, Sarah of Sarah Quilts has a fun link party to do just that and it came timely as well. My stash nook suffered from a lot of pulling and cramming lately and it was high time to sit down and do some sorting.

Cute anecdote: My husband came home whilst I was still in the middle of this process sitting on the sofa surrounded by boxes, fabric, scraps and bags. He gave me a look, a smile and a properly gollum-y "My PRECIOUS!", dispappeared for a moment to put away his shoes and came back saying "Is sitting on the couch!" Yep, I melted a little. No word about me having too much fabric, either - could it be that he's given up come around?

Well, here are my two boxes of fabric sorted by colour. I will always keep these even though I will sometimes make specific project boxes.

And here's a box full of kidlet and baby friendly fabric as well as two small boxes for solids (minus the black and white I'm currently working with).

My precious Australian handprinted fabrics as well as thicker and more coarse fabrics to the left, Echo scraps (so precious, they've got to have their own place) and fabrics which haven't been washed yet on the right.

To the left my scrap box and bags. I purged quite a lot of less useful scraps yesterday. You know them, those tiny pieces that you tell yourself could be useful but end up not being touched ever. To the right my box with stray blocks like an unfinished Dresden, my leftover HSTs from my Emerald challenge quilt top, my finished hexies..

Not to be forgotten, my fashion fabrics, some bed linen, funky 80s GDR fabric from my mother-in-law.

And last but not least: Interfacing, felt, wool.

*Obviously not pictured: Batting, fiberfill, more interfacing, my growing stash of patterns, books, BurdaStyle magazines, sewing basket, notions, more knitting needles, ...

Turns out it looks like a lot less fabric when it's all neatly packed away. Well, umm, to be honest, there's still a couple of plastic bags underneath my desk with old scraps and fabrics given to me by friends or their mothers. So, yeah, it might be a little more once I take a moment to sort and purge that chaos. Another day.

Oh, another plus of keeping your stash organised? It is much easier for friends to spot fabric they like! These have been pulled for a bunch of little monster gifts. (Check out RevoluzZza's tutorial if you don't know it yet. You can find monsters - and a kitten - I've made before in my Flickr stream.)

Happy sewing and don't forget to take a look at the other stash confessions!