It's all about the stash at the moment

Sew Mama Sew wants to know about my stash tendencies. Talk about airing dirty linen in public! :P And kind of strange considering I did a post not 2 hours earlier wishing I could get rid of some of it! Click over here if you're interested in some of it :) I'm drawing for it tomorrow morning my time.

• What do you usually sew?

Clothes, stuffies, soft furnishings (cushions, curtains etc.)

• When you shop for fabric, what size cuts do you usually buy? (i.e. If you see something beautiful, but you don’t have a use for it right away, how much do you buy?)

Usually in 1/2 metre, metre kind of lots - unless I have a specific project I'm buying for, but even then I have a tendency to round up to the nearest half metre 'just in case' - hence half my stash. If I see something beautiful I would buy at least a metre, even two if I particularly love it.

• Do you buy on impulse or do you go out looking for something you need?

I impulse buy, or I go out looking for something specific - sometimes the latter leads to the former (blush)

• Are you a pre-washer? If you are, do you wash your fabric before you need it, or only when you’re ready to use it?

Absolutely, but only when I need it.

• Do you iron it?

Yes, and put it through the dryer. Basically give it the treatment it might get when used, even if it's unlikely anyone would put it through the dryer.

• How do you sort it? (color, print size, collection, etc.)

Print type and fabric type mainly. I have patterned fabrics together, plains together, upholstery-weight together, etc. etc.

• Do you have any special folding techniques?

No, just folded neatly, or rolled up and tied with a long scrap.

• How do you store your fabric?

In plastic bins in the attic which is not ideal but relatively easy to get to and we don't have anywhere else to keep it.

• What tips do you have for building up a well-rounded stash?

None! It's a great concept though, so I'll check others' suggestions.

• When do you say enough is enough?

Now. There are fabrics in there many years old that I'll never use, it's embarrassing. I guess I realised enough was enough when even the bins were too small to hold it all.

• What are some of your favorite stash-busting projects?

Small stuffed dollies and animals and starting to think about quilting. That might help!

• Do you have a current favorite print in your stash? Let’s see it!

Anything Amy Butler (like half the world I think), I have several prints up there that I actually really do just take out and admire and put away. LOL, did I just admit that to the world? After I posted this I went up and grabbed down some of my favourites to photograph. I clearly can't resist showing off, I totally belong on a chat show. These are from the 'patterns' lot, and this was actually a very interesting exercise because I've never laid them out like this (can't you tell I'm not a quilter yet!). I'm now determined to get them organised by colour as well as pattern. Already I'm regretting how I laid them out for the photo, there are some out of order! That Ikea one at the far right is totally out of place, it should be in with that orange Amy Butler. I also learned that I clearly favour pinks (because Hazel looks so darn fabulous in it) and greens, with some orange and brown thrown in. There are reds upstairs in the plain/stripes stash, but nothing in pattern which is interesting considering how much I love it...

• What’s your definition of the perfect stash?
  

One that I was actually going to use in short order.

The joy of giving

So if you haven't checked this out there's still time



Drat, the html's not working for me at this exact second... (got it working) Anyways, I need to get in on one of these give-aways, I've got so much fabric I'll never use that I'd love to give away in something like this but I never come across them until it's in the give-away phase. Which is fine too! Although with the number of comments they generate the chances of winning are pretty low. :))

Anyways, if anyone comes across a nice big give-away in the process of being organised please let me know :) It'd sort of be like Christmas and it'd be so much fun choosing the fabrics to induce maximum squee-age in the participants.

Wash your hands!

What's the phrase I hear most these days? "Mummy I love you"? "No!" Nope, it's "...and do I have to wash my hands? With soap?" Yay for toilet training, yay for being independent, but what is with this obsession about whether she has to wash her hands or not. It's like she has to test the boundaries every time and she's not usually a boundary-pushing little girl. What a rebel. :)

I didn't manage to get any actual embroidery done last night for a few reasons:

1. lighting is all important with this kind of stuff and severely lacking in the living room at night (see, horrible horrible living room!). I need to get a bedside lamp or something set up in there.
2. Getting the fabric back into the hoop so that the circles are round is difficult! It all came back to me as a tugged and pulled and swore under my breath.
   
3. I can't just listen to Heroes and work because I don't speak Japanese and need to read the subtitles for Hiro and Ando.

Mat says that Lost is back in a couple of weeks at the same time as Heroes. How stupid is that - the audience is clearly going to overlap in a big way, why put them in direct competition? Why did my VCR break down last month? That's the only reason I actually care, otherwise I'd just tape one. Oh to have MySky or similar... I'm loathe to get another VCR, even secondhand, because it's outdated technology!

Hidden treasures

I was rummaging around trying to find these Danish cross stitch patterns I have and I found this partially completed tablecloth. It's been a project in progress for at least...7 years? I used to subscribe to Marie Claire Idées (man I loved that magazine, why did I stop subscribing?) and this table cloth was in there. It's a pretty big project, very detailed embroidery but such a lovely effect!

This is where I stopped last time




There are 10(?) circles scattered singly and in groups across the tablecloth.




There is something about patterns, or drawings, or paintings that escape their boundaries that I adore! Especially when it's branches or flowers, it just gives a really neat naturalistic feel - or something. I can't quite quantify why I feel that way but it always gives me a thrill! I can't quite decide which circle I like best, but this one is definitely a contender.




I've decided that it's time to get going on it again, for those times when I want to veg and watch tv and still be productive. Can you veg and be productive at the same time? So tonight is Heroes and that seems like the perfect excuse to get started. No doubt it will take me the full hour to sort out what floss I need and what I was doing 3 years ago when I stopped, and get it folded up and tidy to start going.

Back to school supplies

My supplies list came for the fabric printing class I'm doing next month.

*a selection of leaves, strong with well-marked veins
* recently photocopied designs in black and white
* 2 metres of white cotton fabric - washed and dried
* stamps (rubber type, not postage)
* 3 brushes, chunky flat shape between 5cm and 8cm
...and so on

I figured that I might as well make sure that my white cotton fabric was a decent quality in case anything I did with it was good enough to keep, which ruled out getting it at Spotlight. Their plain cottons are crap. Luckily Global Fabrics is having a huge sale right now and I don't really need much of an excuse to wallow in browse their lovely fabrics. To be honest I mostly just stay away from the place because it's too tempting and you never know what you'll find there on a given day! So 30% off fabric and 50% off knits is a decent sale and I found all sorts of great stuff! I only bought a small amount of it though :) From top: lovely fine white cotton - not too heavy, not too light, just right; pale blue Irish linen; heavy coarsely-woven cotton; and two knits of which you can see a peep of the pale grey. The last two are for me to make tshirts from when I finally break out the Sew-U stretch book and do something with it! The middle two fabrics are for potential projects I have in mind to either do in this class on the second 'individual project' day, or for later for Xmas presents.

The next step is to find some black and white designs. I'm assuming that we will be transferring them to the fabric somehow, I'm sure I've read about doing this. Not sure what kind of technique it is so I'm really at a loss as to what kinds of designs would be suitable. I suppose if I take a variety ranging from detailed to very simple I should be covered! The stamps though...I know Spotlight carries some but no doubt they are naff. There must be somewhere local though. I was looking at stencil suppliers earlier because the September issue of Martha Stewart Living has some lovely projects, but man they're expensive! I think I'll stick with the free ones she supplies :)

The clip issue

When Hazel was born she had a lot of hair (a hairy little bugger as someone said), it never disappeared and there has been more and more of it the bigger she gets. Needless to say very early on we collected a vast and varied array of clips, elastics and doo-dads to deal with it. The number of clips we've been through in the last 3 years must be keeping someone in business. But what to do with the ones she hasn't lost? Storing them has always been a nightmare - I really had no idea what to do with them. Jars don't work because it's too hard to fish out the one you want. Small bowls are better but stuff gets dumped out and messed around and other kids like to play with it. Then the other day I had a brainwave. Well I think I did, it's early days yet but it seems to be working: The clip ribbon!



The only ribbon I had lurking around was an assortment of this gorgeous French stuff I'd bought from my friend Rebeccah, but am generally loathe to use because it's so lovely and I don't want to give it to anyone else! I told you, I'm going to be an old lady with lots of cats, newspapers, fabric and expensive French ribbon. Ahem. It wasn't wide enough so I ironed two lengths on to some lightweight fusible interfacing and that also gives it a bit more weight. They're simply sewn onto a short piece of dowl with some vintage* rickrack from around an Xmas present (also from Rebeccah oddly enough, my local notions supplier obviously!) to hang it up. Oh, and a vintage* button glued onto a nail to make it all pretty and stuff.


Here it is in action

It was kind of sad going through all the clips and realising that some of my favourites have disappeared - there are a few singletons in there now. I know there must be more to go up, including some smaller ones!

*because as we all know, vintage is superior = me being very hip and cool. (text does not convey how much I'm giggling while typing this because really this obsession with vintage is kind of pretentious but like half the internet at the moment, I'm not immune)

I hate my living room

Well I do! I've lived with the previous owners' crap decorating for about 7 years now and I've so had it. Not that I can do anything about it, but the hatred is building and is doing my head in. Same with the kitchen but that's even less likely to get fixed anytime soon so I'm trying to live with it. If I'd been organised here I'd have a photo of the living room for you to sympathise with me over, but this is spur-of-the-moment because I came across the old magazine page that has my dream living room on it and I thought I'd share. What do I hate about the current living room? The wallpaper is, well, wallpaper, which I despise. Worse, it's this sort of grey-ish off-white that makes everything look dingy, which doesn't help in an already dark room. And it's starting to peel in places. Our couches are too big for the space, and dark grey. Our art is too bitsy for the walls, the shelves with the tv/stereo/DVDs are a mish-mash and make it look like a student flat. Winge winge moan moan.

So what do I dream of? I dream of something like this:

I can't even remember what magazine it was out of other than I bought it to take 'camping' with us when we were in Edmonton in the summer. It was a useless magazine but it did have this page. What do I like about it? Well it's full of light even though there's no direct sun (actually there is now that I look at it closely, darn!) - exactly what our living room could be like - it's south facing (equivalent to north-facing for you N. Americans), with a small window looking west. I like the way the colours all work together with a neutral base and pops of something brighter. It's a bit bland perhaps, but I'm not looking to copy slavishly. Our curtains and oriental rug in there are deep red, but the curtains do have a bit of pink so I think we could come up with something although not as girly! Redoing the big heavy curtains as blinds would really open things up I think. And there's integrated shelving which is exactly what we need. Short of winning the lottery we're not going to end up with new sofas, but I've made covers before so that's a good compromise.

I can do so much of this myself, but unfortunately the wallpaper needs to be stripped and the walls plastered before anything can be started and sigh, that's not in the budget at the moment! No doubt by the time we get to it I'll look at this picture and laugh because it looks so dated :)

ETA: I found an earlier post that has a bit of the despised living room. Did you know that "orange" natural polished floors are 'out' and darker or lighter stained floors are 'in'? Idiots - would these be the floors they raved about only a year or two ago? I love how the magazine this was in used the term orange in such a pejorative way. :))