How Much is Too Much?

You know you have too much fabric when you clean out the office closet and find four yards of dark blue silk charmeuse that you have never seen before in your life.
You know you have too many patterns, if, when trying to organize them (a Sisyphean task)you find not two but three of the same one.
You have too many shoes if you find new shoes in the back of your closet but it's the wrong size. Did I think somehow my feet would shrink?

The Big Sort

With every step between my bins of fabric up from storage and the new Giant Wall O' Fabric installed in my new Sewing Studio, I have to step over the above Springer Spaniel. Petey is 11 and "retired" so she sees no reason to move just because she is In My Way. If I move, she moves. It keeps me alert. When my sewing cave was packed up by Mr. Hunting Creek, in his frenzy of organization last November, he just tossed everything into boxes and bins. No rhyme or reason. Now I am unpacking and wondering why I kept certain things. Teeny tiny scraps from a baby quilt or a shirt I made 10 years ago? why yes, I have that.

I had a liberating thought this morning. I didn't have to keep tiny scraps. So I have been throwing them away. My daughter should be here; she loves to throw stuff out. Big pieces will be donated to a worthy quilty cause - there are lots to choose from.

What I am keeping is being neatly folded and added to my Wall. It looks pretty. I'll have to have my daughter the Dominatrix Organizer whip it into colorful artistic shape, but for now, it's moving from the boxes to the shelves. I'm trying to decide how to separate the quilting fabric from the fashion fabric. Or should I just do everything by color? (This is what we call a high class problem.)
I've been jittery and crabby without sewing; I've been like an addict without my fix. Sewing calms me and makes me happy. I've missed it these last few months while my room took shape.
While I sort and fold, I'm trying to decide what my first project will be. I dropped a piece of flannel, and turned around to get something out of the closet before I picked it up. But never fear, Petey laid right down on it to keep it secure on the floor. It's so nice to have helpers!

Great Moments in Fabric Literature, Vol II

Sallie had been buying silks, and Meg longed for a new one, just a handsome light one for parties, her black silk was so common, and thin things for evening wear were only proper for girls. Aunt March usually gave the sisters a present of twenty-five dollars apiece at New Year's. That was only a month to wait, and here was a lovely violet silk going at a bargain, and she had the money, if she only dared to take it. John always said what was his was hers, but would he think it right to spend not only the prospective five-and-twenty, but another five-and-twenty out of the household fund? That was the question. Sallie had urged her to do it, had offered to lend the money, and with the best intentions in life had tempted Meg beyond her strength. In an evil moment the shopman held up the lovely, shimmering folds, and said, A bargain, I assure, you, ma'am. She answered, I'll take it, and it was cut off and paid for, and Sallie had exulted, and she had laughed as if it were a thing of no consequence, and driven away, feeling as if she had stolen something, and the police were after her.

When she got home, she tried to assuage the pangs of remorse by spreading forth the lovely silk, but it looked less silvery now, didn't become her, after all, and the words `fifty dollars' seemed stamped like a pattern down each breadth. She put it away, but it haunted her, not delightfully as a new dress should, but dreadfully like the ghost of a folly that was not easily laid. When John got out his books that night, Meg's heart sank, and for the first time in her married life, she was afraid of her husband. The kind, brown eyes looked as if they could be stern, and though he was unusually merry, she fancied he had found her out, but didn't mean to let her know it.

Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

There may or may not be possums...

My daughter has been watching Hoarders with the horror and fascination of someone driving by a giant car pile up. She just can't look away.
I can't watch. I come from a long line of hoarders, and I am constantly resisting the siren call of owning every fabric I desire, or all of the patterns I ever wanted, even though two lifetimes would not give me enough time to sew what I have already. Two years ago I stopped buying fabric. And in the two years I have not suffered a fabric shortage. I just used what I had. I did buy thread and zippers and interfacing as needed. But I never want to be like the lady who said on the show, "There may or may not be possums in that bedroom. There have been no confirmed sightings, but..." If you just can't be sure if there might be possums in your house, it's official. You have a problem.
(Now when one of our rooms or closets is messy we all say, "there may or may not be possums...")
For example: our front closet, where we keep all of the coats. I do not recall ever getting rid of a coat in the last ten years. Possum territory, definitely.
I think that the fear of ending up like those poor people might have inspired me to clean my closets. That and the fear of possums, of course.
Do you have a room that may or may not have possums?

The Buck Stops Here

Anyone who has ever tried to quit smoking or drinking or any pernicious addiction can tell you the tricks the mind plays on the addict to try and tempt said virtuous abstaining addict to fall off the wagon. As I discussed a few months ago, my children (who up until that point had seemed like nice, well behaved and affectionate children) claimed that I had a fabric and pattern "problem". They claimed that I was an addict; I denied it. (Which is exactly what an addict would say.) I found myself telling Mr. Hunting Creek this weekend that I had not bought any fabric or patterns since last March and we both realized: that's when the recession began! Yes! Mrs. Hunting Creek, mild mannered textile artist, quilter and sewista-poseur may be responsible for the worst recession since the Great Depression! So I expressed this belief, and asked Mr. Hunting Creek if I should, instead moderate my fabric fast in order to jump start the economy, patriotic duty and all that. For those of you not fortunate enough to know Mr. Hunting Creek personally, let me just say that he is a trained economist and responds to comments like that with statements that include terms like "declining marginal utility", "St. Milton Friedman", and "Keynesian."
What I took away from his possible Nobel prize winning discourse is that OTHER sewistas should support their favorite fabric pushers, but not Mrs. Hunting Creek. It was his opinion that addict that I am, I may have caused the whole Global Financial Meltdown in order to thus have an excellent excuse to purchase yards and yards of fabric, claiming to be doing it to "save the world". "Addicts are like that", he says. "They'll do anything for their fix".
So my fellow addicts (you know who you are), get out there and spend. Do it for the country, do it to save the economy, and while you are buying some lovely Italian wool doublecoth, think of me. Your country will thank you later.


p.s. if I were going to buy a new pattern, this new McCalls shirtdress caught my eye. Would it be cheating if someone bought it for my birthday?...just asking...