Confessions - The Stash

I have an incredibly guilty secret, my sewing stash. It has grown to the point of needing an entire room in my house dedicated to its safe storage. Some of the stuff will never be downsized. I cannot see myself getting rid of my machines or my ironing board. But the rest, yeah, I've got problems.

I try to limit my stuff, but temptation gets a hold of me, in particular, my fabric stash. It's out of control.
There it is down there on the left. Three bins stuffed so full that I can't close them. It's even piled on top.

Many ladies would say, "Posh, that's nothing. I have shelves...rooms...a basement...full of fabric." Yes, that's true for many sewers but most of those ladies might be called quilters or crafters. That's a whole different line of fabric hoarding, which I will not touch for now. These are all fabrics bought for clothing. Each bin has at least a two dozen projects.

What makes this a hoard for me is that I'm intensely uncomfortable with its size and embarrassed about the shear number of unfinished projects. During one previous move, I counted as I unpacked, the number was over 90. The stash has grown larger since that time. I hang my head in shame for all the clothes sitting there in those bins and not hanging in my closet.

I started fabric hoarding when I first moved away from my favorite fabric store nearly 20 years ago. At that time, they ran a mail order business and a quarterly newsletter went out. I bought from that newsletter like crazy woman, never finishing all the projects before the next newsletter arrived. I was desperately afraid I'd end up moving somewhere that fabric didn't exist. It turned out that happened several times over. Each time I got to a decent fabric store, I over bought. I couldn't say no in the face of the next fabric drought. So here I am today, trapped in a cycle of bounty and famine. I hoard fabric.

So the New Year has arrived, I have vowed to bust part of this stash this year.  In my idealized mind, it should be less than three projects. I'll celebrate if I have one bin in December, but in reality if I go from three overflowing to two neatly organized bins I will have done well.

The next two projects are stash busters. I've chosen two pieces of cotton out of the bin and I'm hoping for two casual blouses.