In my last post I was feeling pretty good about myself, thinking I was pretty much done with all my fabric organizing. If you recall, I was just trying to figure out how to store a *small* stack of fabric samples given to me by my friend Sari. Remember this photo?
These samples were given to my friend in turn by somebody who distributes them wholesale. They are 100% Colombian cotton (hard for us to find!) and feel great to the touch. As I started to sort them, I discovered, however, that they all had these little stickers with numbers on them. And at least half of them had double-sided sticky tape along one or both of the short edges. Some of them even had paper stuck to them. My friend told me all she did was soak hers and all this stuff came off. So I decided to pull the stickers off (they were easy) and the just dump the whole pile in the washing machine and not worry about it.
Ok, so it wasn’t a mistake. I mean, I can tell some of these shrank, so it’s good I washed before I used them. And most of the sticky stuff does seem to have come off. Not in all cases, but I guess I will just cut that off. My problem? My nice little pile above became this:
The pieces wrinkled and seemed to expand! So yesterday I decided to sort and iron them in order to be able to store them. After an hour (c’mon, people, I do have other things to do, you know!), this is how far I got: a few little piles, an apparently small amount ironed, and a tiny dent in the unsorted pile.
And then this morning, as I looked up at the top shelf where I had dumped these when I got them, I discovered two more bags. They were all the way at the back and I hadn’t noticed them. Plus another basket on another shelf with flannel samples. All of them with little stickers and sticky stuff. Obviously, I will have to wash these, too. But I’m going to have to leave that for another day!
So I calculated how much is here. There were eleven bags – actually twelve if I count the flannel – with 100 pieces each. That makes – you got it – 1,200 pieces to sort, iron, and store.
As I stand here looking at this “mess” a part of me (ok, very tiny!) is thinking “will this never end?” Another part (much bigger!) is going “yay, fabric! Think how many quilts I can make!”
BIG GRIN.
I am a self-learner. I taught myself to sew and to quilt. And I taught myself how to draw. I am learning how to dye my own fabrics and am dabbling with mixed media. I am a quilt designer and teacher, and design and publish my own line of quilt patterns. With this blog I would like to share the bits and pieces of my life.
2 Comments
If you are a quilter for any length of time and live in a house, with all those nooks and crannies for storage, there are always ‘hidden’ bags of fabric. I would not be surprised if you find more after you finish processing these ones. I feel like I may not find all of them until I actually pack up to move somewhere. They breed in the dark.
Oh, so right. I found another bag – albeit small – that a friend left behind before traveling. I do think it is all contained within the limits of the studio, but won’t know until I get it all nicely organized!