help you de-stash. Really. My two fiber friends, Ginnie and Cindy, still visiting from our NYC fabric buying adventure, helped me today, to find room for all my new lovely fabrics…
Since it was a glorious rainy day, it was impossible to spend it outside in the gardens, so the next best place was in the studio. Ginnie is also a weaver, and so hanging in my studio was as good as hanging in NYC fabric shops, actually anyone’s studio other than yours is always a treat. Mine is overflowing, and it was hard to know where to look first.
My seven shelves of fabrics contains treasures from people I don’t even remember, my mother’s stash, classics from the 70’s and an assortment of oddities that left me scratching my head saying to myself, “What could I have been thinking?” In addition, mice had made quite a nest behind all the fabrics, filling nooks and crannies with birdseed carted up from the yard, into the house, up the pipes to the second floor and then onto the shelves in my studio. OK, I live in a 100 year old house. We get mice. It has nothing to do with my housekeeping.
However. It should be noted that I realize that I need to take all the fabrics and yarns off the shelf on a yearly basis to check for things like mouse infestation or flying insects who shall not be named… (note, since most of my yarns are not wool, I’m not as diligent about checking for moths.)
Anyway, the shelves haven’t been emptied in a couple of years, and they were pretty disorganized. Plus there are fabrics I am holding on to, that I have no interest in ever making up, but they make great muslin mock-ups and then I can toss them once they have done their job. Those fabrics should live in the attic, not in my studio.
We started unloading stacks of fabrics off the shelves, and Ginnie helped me decide what pile to put them in, keep, give away, muslin to the attic, or trash. Cindy was a great help packing up bags of fabrics that would eventually end up in the attic.
As the shelves emptied, the pile on the table grew.
Then Cindy and Ginnie helped me fold all the “keep” fabrics and organize them by fiber content and type, and then put them back onto the shelves in neat stacks.
We ended by carting all the fabrics destined for muslins up to the actual attic, and I ended up with a completely empty shelf, which I quickly filled with assorted bags of crap from other corners of the studio. That’s for another day.
Only really really good fiber friends would give up a day of their vacation to help another friend with a stash issue. We laughed, drooled over some fantastic cuts of fabric, swooned over the camel suiting I didn’t know I had, and shrieked with delight over some of the fantastic imported cotton shirtings and silks I also didn’t know I had. We all went out for dinner for Margaritas, and my loyal wonderful husband shared the evening with us, like the good sport he is, knowing it was also our 35th wedding anniversary. We will celebrate tomorrow after everyone is gone, but for today, I have organization on the shelves, some gorgeous fabrics to look at, and some serious sewing to do in the next couple years.
Stay tuned…
LOVE IT!!!! Love your friends, love you, love the tale of organization – things get SO bad before they get better – SOglad you had some help because that was a lot of WORK! Thanks for sharing. I can hope for such friends for myself some day.
Daryl, such a good job done. But are you not afraid of the daylight on your fabrics ? They can damage your fabrics on the folds that are exposed. You can roll your silk fabrics on tubes like in a fabric store and then roll them in paper where you can attach a little sample of the fabric inside.
Your studio has changed a lot this year, after the reorganistion of the looms with your daughter and now the reorganistion of the fabrics. It will give you a room for new ideas.
Rosaline.
WOW! A rainy day and good friends to play with — definitely helpful in deciding what to keep and what to re-purpose. The creations in the future are going to be even more exciting! Happy 35th to you and hubby.
There is nothing like a well organized studio. You will enjoy working there. Happy 35th to you and your husband. You are an inspiration. (BTW, our house is almost 100 yrs old and mice have started to get into our basement). -Catherine
When will Cindy and Ginny find their ways to WI. I know there are no fabric stores…but we are close to Chicago.
That was a treat….glad the piles didn’t fall down and smother you 🙂 I also had a friend look at some ‘stuff’ my sister had given me and wow….she gave me enough ideas for ’50’ more projects!! Happy 35th!
Love this post! Your friends didn’t “give up” a vacation day for this. I’d be willing to bet they felt like this was one of the BEST days of their vacation!
It was an excellent day of existence on an alternative plane of fabric and fiber deliciousness with DARYL: we couldn’t have asked for more!
Por el precio será relativamente más caros que otras prendas de vestir, determinado principalmente por el material de la chaqueta, la chaqueta es el principal producto de la industria, por abajo y la pluma constituida de Down generalmente usado en alto grado blanco de plumas de ganso más del 90% o el 90 arriba% pato blanco abajo.