CSQ Fabric Swap

Last week the guild I belong to held their annual Fabric Swap. Everyone brings what they no longer want, we lay it all out on the hostess's dining table, and everyone selects what they want to take home. No obligation to bring or take anything. The only rule is that no leftover fabric can remain at the hostess's house; someone takes it all to Charity Sharity.

Knowing I'm going to move later this year, I went through my entire stash to see what I wanted to get rid of. My stash is sorted by color, etc. in 18 of these baskets. I keep anything larger than 1/8 yard here.

I was ruthless and unsentimental. I gave away fabrics from previous projects, no longer loved pieces, and cuts I know I'll never use because my tastes have changed. In all, by weight 7.8 lbs, I gave away 23-1/2 yards of quilting cotton. I didn't think to take a photo of the over-stuffed grocery bag I took.

I also gave away all my apparel fabrics and home dec fabrics and fleece, two giant totes full, plus a bolt of interfacing. Someone other than me can make better use of it. Some of the fabric was vintage - some silks from the 1940's which I bought at an auction in the 1980's, and 1980's-90's sample cuts of suitings from sample sales where I worked back then. If I haven't used it by now, I never will. Again, no photos. I had so much stuff and it was so heavy it took two trips from the car to the house to carry it all. Anyone at the swap could take any of the non-quilting fabrics if they wanted, but most of it went to Charity Sharity. The interfacing went to the costume shop at a local theater company.

I swore I wasn't going to bring home any fabric from the swap. I caved; there was one piece that was so "me" I just had to have it. So this one yard coral print came home with me.

The culling of quilting cotton didn't make much of a dent in my stash, but by going through all the baskets I was able to see where I had an overabundance of some colors and lacked variety in others. By getting rid of all the non-quilting fabrics, I cleared three entire shelves in the bottom half of my bookcase. While I was doing all this, I sent all my old cross stitch patterns and fabrics to someone who's into cross stitch and can use them.

You would think after all this my sewing room would look nice and clean. No, it's a worse disaster than ever. I have a big overflowing box of stuff that's not going to be moved, to go in the eventual estate sale or whatever, and it's taking up valuable floor space. Plus the project stuff for the Dresden Fan Medallion is out, plus the leftovers from the Color Spoke project are still out on the cutting table. And I've been hand sewing on the WIGSP so that's spread out, too. More cleaning up needed!