Call me Dorothy

This isn't one of those posts wherein I am half buried by my stash and come to with the epiphany that I have way, way too much fabric and I can never buy fabric again and I'm at SABLE, and I'm a terrible person for wasting so much money on fabric when there is hunger in the world, and how many clothes does one person need, and (fill in your favorite recrimination here).

It's not one of those posts.

However.

I did mention, didn't I, that I finally decided on a project the other day and then I couldn't locate the fabric. The stash hid it from me.

Saturday was the day of reckoning. I took down every single piece of fabric in the shelving unit, rearranged and organized it according to methods only understood by me, and not necessarily even me, and put it all back.

I found the missing fabric.

I also found that (a) I'll never need to buy black fabric again; (b) the heavy non-stretch denim nobody sells which is keeping me from making the jeans I want to make . . . is on my shelf, times 3; (c) you can have too much boucle; and (d) unlike wine, does NOT always get better as it ages and some of this stuff pre-dates me. If I have issues, they're inherited.

So this isn't one of those self-hating, stash-hating posts. I LOVE my stash. But how much fabric do I need? It tells me something that I spent two days unable to decide what to sew next. Really? . If I can look at that much yardage and not be able to think of something to do with it, I don't deserve to sew. And you know I'm not going to stop sewing.

I'm not saying I'm not buying any more fabric. That's self-defeating right there. Even the most austere fabric fast allows you to purchase what you need to complete a project; how else do you ever sew down the stash?

I've decided to go to PR Weekend Chicago in May. I've never been to Chicago. I'm sure they have good fabric there. And my goal right now is to not buy any fabric until I'm in Chicago. We'll see how I do. It seems like a manageable goal - it's the fabric dieter's version of deciding to cut out dessert rather than vaguely swearing to lose 20 lbs.

So that's it. Just call me Dorothy, back from Oz. I don't need to go looking for my heart's desire, it's right here, in my own back room.

Did you hear the crash?

That loud thump when I fell off the fabric-fasting wagon? I didn't intend to fall; I was going to hold out until vacation, when I could fabric shop in France, but I somehow found myself on the Gorgeous Fabrics website at lunch the other day, and you know what happened next.

It could have been worse. She was having a sale, so it could have been much worse. I got a yard each of two really cute stretch jerseys ("Bohemian Cristalle" and "Olive Garden") for tops that will coordinate with the wardrobe pieces I made. I also got 2 yards of a dark brown Italian cotton/lycra stretch called, appropriately, "The Road More Traveled." I bought some of this in black a while back and it was so fabulous that when I saw she had it in brown, I had to get some. And then I bought 2 yards of a beautiful stylized paisley batiste that I want to use to make BWOF 5/2007 # 111, a top I didn't evem particularly like until I saw Christina's version of it in her wardrobe. Now I must have one.

So, 6 yards total. That really isn't bad. Really. Especially for me.

When I submitted my order, I told Ann that she made me break my no-shopping-before-vacation resolve, and her logic was this, "Well, look at it this way, with the dollar being in the hopper against the Euro, you're saving money on all fronts!" Okay, then. Not only is she an enabler, she's a justifier. Multi-talented, that woman is.

Who knows, I might even get my fabrics before I leave, and if I do, I'm going to sew up "Olive Garden" into another quickie KS 3338 tee to wear while I'm in Paris.

The PR Wardrobe Contest

Since I've gone and entered the Wardrobe Contest on Patternreview, I'm hoping I actually have it in me to complete 10 coordinating pieces by the end of April. I know that my current plan is to make each garment coordinate with the preceding one, so in theory it should work, but signing on to do it may guarantee it not happening.

On the other hand, it might really provide the boot in the butt that I need to keep going with my plan.

It also has to be made completely from stash (my rule, not theirs), with the exception of lining fabrics. I’m not breaking the fabric fast to do this.