I can resist fabric about as well as I can resist Halloween candy. They always get me, with their big colorful bags and their “fun size” or “minis”. It’s only a “mini”, how bad could it be? Those little bars in the big bag are as bad as fat quarters. Sure, they are only 22”x18”, but they are all folded up in a cute bundle and there’s 42 of them!
Just like candy, my tastes in fabrics also change from day to day. Sometimes I feel like a Snickers, then sometimes I feel like a Starburst. Sometimes I feel like a cute novelty pickle fabric and sometimes I feel like a holiday plaid. This leaves my stash looking as eclectic as a plastic pumpkin full of Halloween candy dumped all over the living room floor.
I have purchased a lot of fabric over the years just because it was cute or pretty. I have even more because “it would make such a great____ (fill in the blank)____”! So, I buy it, but I never have time to make the (bank). It’s a real problem. I have more fabric hanging around than cellulite from all those minis. The solution to both problems is really the same: don’t go into the store in the first place, or, if you simply must, just get one thing. Just get one candy bar instead of the pack of forty. Just get one fat quarter instead of enough to make a California King size quilt.
Finally, understand if you go to the convenience store when you are feeling snacky, you are definitely going to buy candy. It follows that if you go into the fabric store feeling hungry for creativity, you are going to buy a whole lot more stuff for the one hundred ideas you get from wandering the aisles, many of them you never even thought of before entering the fabric shop. In an effort not to go over your budget for fabric calories, consider the mountain of projects you have just sourced and narrow the herd down to the top one or two projects you are likely to have the time and enthusiasm to undertake. Put the rest of the stuff back and be sure to grab a peanut butter cup on the way out!
Visit the By the Yard Store for the By the Yard® 2024 Calendar for Quilters, plus lots of fun greeting cards for quilters!
I love the cartoon! I can’t resist candy in my sewing room — it is sugar free though. Can’t resist it as much as I can’t resist the quilt shop and feeling new fabric. lol
Christine
Ah, will power….not in my wheelhouse most of the time. Some sweets cannot come in the house because I will eat them way too fast! At least fabric isn’t an edible addiction! I’ve had to downsize: before moving, after moving, and now once again! And still I buy fabric….
Oh yes this time of year just “revving” our engines for “I can make them (son/daughter/aunt/the mailman) a quilt for Christmas!” Love your stories, so much wisdon and humor!
Love, love the 2024 calendar. I kept the first page of the 2023 calendar. I love the kinds of quilt patterns from Ho Hum to tear your hair out! Oh so true. Our guild has a trunk show in December to show a Works in progress quilt, no matter how long the quilt has been under way.
Thank you Celia! My “quilt pattern rating system” comes from experience!! You can read about my different “Skill Levels” here: https://bytheyardcomics.com/a-proposed-difficulty-level-scale-for-quilting-patterns/
Love, love the 2024 calendar. I kept the first page of the 2023 calendar. I love the kinds of quilt patterns from Ho Hum to tear your hair out! Oh so true. Our guild has a trunk show in December to show a Works in progress quilt, no matter how long the “Works in progress quilt has been progressing.
I moved two years ago to be closer to a daughter so she “was available to take care of me as I get older”. My goal is to work on the UFO’s I moved with me, not by anymore fabrics for new projects. So I have been sewing pretty regularly on UFO’s – just one problem: I don’t have the “right” co-ordinating fabric(s) in my giant stash, so I HAVE to go out and buy that. (Don’t tell her that!). I pray that God will let me live long enough to get all these projects done, but I’m not betting any church funds on it. Ha! Ha1