Fabric stash: attack of the dustbunnies!
Dec. 1st, 2009 11:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janestarzAs Alice-in-Wonderland blogged about storing her fabrics yesterday, I wanted to share with you all the way I've stored my fabrics for the past few years.
This is how it usually looks in my atelier. Stuff is stashed in front of the fabric cupboard. I have storage bins, mannequins, a large cardboard box with wood coat hangers, a plastic box with some small inventory items like the embroidered pouches![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
absintheskiss made, and oodles of small items that I really should clear away stacked in front of the cupboard. Some of it has already been taken from that far corner when I took this picture.
Because I had to get my storage bins (I folded and pricetagged the rack yesterday night and my bins were in the far corner), I moved all of this junk to the other side of the room, leaving just a little space to turn around in. I stacked it all in front of the door. Oh yes, don't forget the trusted ironing board...
The complete, and full, cupboard. See, there is a floor under there, and it's ruled by dustbunnies. I clean and vacuum this room a couple of times each year: whenever we go to a faire, and everything is packed and I can actually reach down there.
But down into Stashland we go...
Bottom-right part of the stash. The bottom-most shelf holds the least-used fabrics. Here lies leather, pleather and suede (real and fake), as well as some leftover cotton velvet (at € 15,- per meter you don't toss your scraps!) and some very unused poly-taffeta and poly-satins that just scare me. There's even a bit of silk in there. And I also stash my personal fabrics here, because I never get around to sewing them.
Also: the leather is slowly migrating south. This is what happens when I don't clean the cupboard up periodically.
Right side at eye level: this is where most of my commonly-used fabrics lie. The printed fabrics that just spring out there, of all makes (poly-cotton, brocade, poly-satin brocade...) you name it! The autumny-jersey in green, gold and red (underneath the blue roses fabric) is for some longsleeves for myself. I bought the fabric a year ago.
On top of the cupboard are some bolts, and this is just arranged there because I've bought so much of it. The red bolt is a wool, the patterned things are printed poly-satins (uck), there's a whole role of light-brown cotton velveteen that I don't know what I'll do with, there's silk and poly chiffons, jersey knit and even a whole bolt of black lace...
What the hell do I need all that for? (That's a recurring thought...)
Top-left! On top are again, large bolts of fabric. Another red wool in a slightly different hue as the other, a black-and white rayon I bought off Stoffversandhandel.de I still don't know what to do with because it's so psychedelic, a bolt of blue wool, a printed cotton in snakeskin yellow/camel...
On the shelf beneath that are the Pathfinder fabrics and patterns, bagged and tagged, and the rest is mostly lining and undergarment fabrics. The reds are home-dyed, the whites are mostly cotton drill, linen or even twill. There's also some green stretch cotton in there.
Beneath all that white is my shelf of fake furs. it's often rather expensive, so whenever I find a fake fur that's affordable (€ 5,- or less per meter) I just snap it up. Including that god-awful, long-haired, bright green fur with sparklies in it that's on the bottom there. There's also scraps of fur, since you can still use it to edge something with.
Beneath the furs is a shelf with my wools. These are all thicker wools for coats, or really expensive wools. The blue and off-white and celery came from Reconstructing History.
Underneath that... is a junk-shelf. I don't even know what's up there. I don't think I want to know what is in those bags. I can see one of the bags holds a scrap of jersey I made a summer dress out of... but as for the rest, I can only guess. I think most of the stuff on the right-hand side is scraps.
It's two weeks until the Midwinterfaire. Let's see how much I can sew from all of these fabrics!
This is how it usually looks in my atelier. Stuff is stashed in front of the fabric cupboard. I have storage bins, mannequins, a large cardboard box with wood coat hangers, a plastic box with some small inventory items like the embroidered pouches
absintheskiss made, and oodles of small items that I really should clear away stacked in front of the cupboard. Some of it has already been taken from that far corner when I took this picture. Because I had to get my storage bins (I folded and pricetagged the rack yesterday night and my bins were in the far corner), I moved all of this junk to the other side of the room, leaving just a little space to turn around in. I stacked it all in front of the door. Oh yes, don't forget the trusted ironing board...
The complete, and full, cupboard. See, there is a floor under there, and it's ruled by dustbunnies. I clean and vacuum this room a couple of times each year: whenever we go to a faire, and everything is packed and I can actually reach down there.
But down into Stashland we go...
Bottom-right part of the stash. The bottom-most shelf holds the least-used fabrics. Here lies leather, pleather and suede (real and fake), as well as some leftover cotton velvet (at € 15,- per meter you don't toss your scraps!) and some very unused poly-taffeta and poly-satins that just scare me. There's even a bit of silk in there. And I also stash my personal fabrics here, because I never get around to sewing them.
Also: the leather is slowly migrating south. This is what happens when I don't clean the cupboard up periodically.
Right side at eye level: this is where most of my commonly-used fabrics lie. The printed fabrics that just spring out there, of all makes (poly-cotton, brocade, poly-satin brocade...) you name it! The autumny-jersey in green, gold and red (underneath the blue roses fabric) is for some longsleeves for myself. I bought the fabric a year ago.
On top of the cupboard are some bolts, and this is just arranged there because I've bought so much of it. The red bolt is a wool, the patterned things are printed poly-satins (uck), there's a whole role of light-brown cotton velveteen that I don't know what I'll do with, there's silk and poly chiffons, jersey knit and even a whole bolt of black lace...
What the hell do I need all that for? (That's a recurring thought...)
Top-left! On top are again, large bolts of fabric. Another red wool in a slightly different hue as the other, a black-and white rayon I bought off Stoffversandhandel.de I still don't know what to do with because it's so psychedelic, a bolt of blue wool, a printed cotton in snakeskin yellow/camel...
On the shelf beneath that are the Pathfinder fabrics and patterns, bagged and tagged, and the rest is mostly lining and undergarment fabrics. The reds are home-dyed, the whites are mostly cotton drill, linen or even twill. There's also some green stretch cotton in there.
Beneath all that white is my shelf of fake furs. it's often rather expensive, so whenever I find a fake fur that's affordable (€ 5,- or less per meter) I just snap it up. Including that god-awful, long-haired, bright green fur with sparklies in it that's on the bottom there. There's also scraps of fur, since you can still use it to edge something with.
Beneath the furs is a shelf with my wools. These are all thicker wools for coats, or really expensive wools. The blue and off-white and celery came from Reconstructing History.
Underneath that... is a junk-shelf. I don't even know what's up there. I don't think I want to know what is in those bags. I can see one of the bags holds a scrap of jersey I made a summer dress out of... but as for the rest, I can only guess. I think most of the stuff on the right-hand side is scraps.
It's two weeks until the Midwinterfaire. Let's see how much I can sew from all of these fabrics!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-12-01 11:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-01 12:07 pm (UTC)It is much easier to store fabric when it is still this wide. I have mainly scraps to store.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-01 12:17 pm (UTC)Although my stuff is all in plastic boxes and tubs on shelves, I may actually already have more than you . Hmm.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-01 12:21 pm (UTC)I've got lots of ideas for new sewing projects, but when I went through my fabric 'stash' last weekend I found that I had 'nothing to work with'. Meaning that pieces are too small, a really odd color that will fit with nothing else, icky sticky fabric (synthetic, ewww) etc.
I want your stash! :P
~Brenda~
no subject
Date: 2009-12-01 12:40 pm (UTC)I should really go through the entire cupboard to see which fabrics are mine and I want to keep, and sew the rest or sell them on MWF.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-01 12:41 pm (UTC)I have the same problem with my stash. The horrible green fur with sparklies won't match anything except maybe some of the red wool, the brown velvet is horrible with anything else and I've not yet wrapped my head around what kind of garment would work with the printed yellow/beige snakeskin.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-01 12:42 pm (UTC)What they do mostly is fold their scraps/fat quarters/yardages to a certain size, and store them in a rainbow. But then, quilters only use cotton.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-01 12:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-01 01:04 pm (UTC)"Hi. This is the qmail-send program at yahoo.com.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.
(your e-mail address at alice-in-wonderland)
Sorry, I wasn't able to establish an SMTP connection. (#4.4.1)
I'm not going to try again; this message has been in the queue too long."
no subject
Date: 2009-12-01 01:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-01 07:05 pm (UTC)Bloody impressive stash you have there.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 09:00 am (UTC)I sometimes wonder if it's a matter of nesting behavior, mating behavior (a contest of who has the most impressive stash) or something else entirely. =)