Sunday, February 5, 2012

The Challenge- Stash Attack!

After having a conversation with a friend we both decided we have too many untouched patterns and WAY too much fabric to go with them.  Personally, I could cloth my entire family (or a small village) for probably several years.  I have bolts of fabric.  I have bins of fabric.  I have shelves of fabric.  I have closets full of fabric.  And because I ran out of room I have a table COVERED in fabric.  I have fabric I bought to sell.  Fabric I bought to make things.  Fabric I bought and forgot.  I always have the best of intentions, but it just seems like at the end of the day, time has run out and I still have fabric.  

Patterns?  Well those aren't as obvious, since I only have 1 bin of those.  Now with this nifty new way to purchase patterns and have them emailed, most of them are on my computer, or printed and in a file drawer, binder or sitting in my cutting room just waiting to be sewn.  I have a much easier time purchasing patterns, since my husband never sees them, since they don't technically come into the house (at least they aren't delivered by the man in the black and purple shirt), they must therefore not exist.  I think if my husband ever found out the number of downloadable patterns I own, well we'll just leave it at it wouldn't be pretty.

My husband has grown accustomed to my small quirks and ummm obsessions.  The fact is I LOVE buying fabric and I LOVE buying patterns.  There really is no feeling like the one of the FedEx guy pulling up with boxes of fabric.  Opening the box to find an entire stash of bolts, colorful, bright, beautiful.  You mind races with thoughts of everything those pretty fabric will become, skirts, dresses, shirts, tops, the list goes on and on.  Things you could make, things you want to make and even things you need to make.  But the sad truth in my life is, more fabric comes in than ever gets sewn.  This has become quite a problem here in the last year or so as we gear up to finish some construction we put on hold while Phil was in school.  So now what to do with all this fabric and all these patterns.  

The simple answer was start sewing, but really I just can't force myself to sew, I just have too much going on. So as I discussed this with my friend and then with my Facebook group Me Time Sewing I found I wasn't alone.  Knowing it wasn't me just hoarding all the lovely fabric, that I wasn't the only one that didn't want to cut those beautiful prints, that others were as intimidated by the patterns and trying the new techniques they held as I was, was well, encouraging.  Then Megan challenged me.  In a side comment, just making a joke she said, "We should agree to sew 1 pattern every month until we've been through all our patterns".  Ok, hold on Megan, let's start small.  Let's try and go a year, then we'll talk a life time :) Thus The Challenge was born.  

I put the challenge to my group, challenging all of them, the way Megan challenged me.  Sew 1 pattern each month from your stash.  For extra credit try and ONLY use the fabrics you ALREADY have.  Soon we had a name for our project and people sewing.  We already have people (me included ;) that have sewn their February (before Feb even began!) projects.  We have people trying things they never thought they would get to try, and lots and lots of people there to help when we get stuck.  

The Challenge:
Each month for the next 12 months, sew 1 pattern out of your pattern stash.  Pick something you have been wanting to do forever or something you picked up last month.  But sew something.  Use fabric from your stash to complete the project.  At the end of the year, you should have at least 12 new projects and at least 12 less patterns you can say, I own it but never got to sew it.  So how about it?  Would you like to join us?  What will you sew today?

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