War Room Report – Day #1
Here’s how I’m thinking I can follow my “Not Gonna Do” List:
(1) I will not buy fabric! No reason! If I need fabric for a special project, it comes from the stash or I choose another project.
I’ve been lazy! It was too easy to run out and buy new fabric, with the quilt shop owner’s help, than to pull fabrics from my stash that worked. I’m learning to make stash quilts instead of all “matchy/matchy” type quilts. If I have to change a design a bit to accommodate the stash fabrics, I’ll do it!
(2) I will not sit at the computer and browse the quilt shops online. And, if my friends try to “meg” me, I’ll just be strong and I’ll just say NO!
Knitting has helped with this issue. When I’m tired or have just a few minutes to sit down, instead of going to my favorite quilt shops online, I now pick up my knitting.
(3) I will not stop at quilt shops. If I don’t need anything . . why stop?
Not having a quilt shop with lots of fabric around helps but also, I hate it when I walk into a quilt shop and don’t buy anything. Do you feel like you HAVE to buy something every time you go to a quilt shop? I do and lately, I’ve found myself just really wanting to go to a quilt shop and then when I get inside, trying to figure out how to get out without feeling bad about not buying anything. So . . lately, not stopping has been easier than going in and walking out without buying anything.
(4) When I’m making a quilt, if I pull a fabric from the stash that works, I will not let that little voice inside me say “But . . if you use it, you will not have it!” I will be brave and I will cut those special fabrics!
Last week (or maybe week before last), I started a top. It was a top I wasn’t 100% excited about making because it was just to quickly test a pattern I had submitted to a magazine. I had already made the quilt once but just wanted to be sure all my instructions were correct. I pulled about 15 background fabrics, all of which worked great but . . I liked them too much to use them. So, I put them all back, found one that was kinda old and not so great so I used it. Well, as luck would have it, I love this quilt and now wish I’d used one of those better background fabrics. I’ll remind myself of this each time this issue comes up.
Sounds like I’m on the road to recovery, right? Well, it’s early in this process and I have a very long way to go.
About some of your comments:
May Britt wrote:
You are aware of that all fabrics multiplies during the night!!!
I thought that might be happening. Thanks for letting me know!! 
pdudgeon wrote:
Judy, at some time you had visions of quilts in your head when you saw that fabric. You just need to find those visions again!
No, I didn’t! I bought fabric because I had nothing to do but sit in front of the computer and order fabric! Never once thought how I might use about 90% of what I bought.
Audrey wrote:
Have a fabric sale on Ebay…then you can shop guilt free ( I do that with yarn
No way! This fabric is mine and I’m gonna use it!
Judy L.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
This post made me laugh! Perhaps it is because you have articulated in words exactly what has been going on in many quilt studios around the country–not just yours! I am thinking there must be a full 12 step program somewhere for us!
My current stash-busting philosophy is addressing the money end of things. I figured out for January how many projects I finished and divided that into how much money I spent on quilt-related stuff. WOW! — my average had better go down in February!
I took a class with Elizabeth Busch who’d read to us every morning from a book by Annie Dillar, “The Writing Life.” I’ve kept a quote from that book with me ever since and remind myself of it whenever I find myself loving a fabric too much to cut it up:
“The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. . . . Anything you so not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”
How many of us “saved” a fabric, only to find, 20 years later, that we didn’t even like it anymore?
P.S Judy, I just finished knitting my sixth pair of socks!
I’m going to join you in a modified version of your War on the Stash. I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately and will post my strategies on my blog after I tweak them a bit. I’m rooting for you this year. WE CAN DO THIS!
Good resolutions! Keep saying them over and over to yourself. Print out several copies and tack them around your room. Put a note on the dashboard of your car.
You can do this! Lead the charge and the rest of us will follow!
Interesting post. I think #3 is key: just stay out of the shops. When I’m on an economy kick in general (not just where quilting is concerned), I simply stop shopping. By that I mean I just don’t go to the stores. Amazing how much money I save that way. Sometimes I get that fabric hunger and I know I’m gonna go and I know I’m gonna buy. But not always. I have recently walked out of LQS’s empty-handed. I went Saturday and came home with one little fat quarter to add to my collection of woven-plaids-that-aren’t-homespuns. Period. (They’re not widely available so I’m stashing them for a future project in my head.) I’ve only been quilting a couple of years and I find I’m getting more discriminating in what I buy, which also helps.