Sorting the Scraps

For the last nine years I have been carrying around a box of fabrics that I accumulated during my time as a costume designer. This box of fabric has moved to three different states and for the last three years it has sat in storage. Now, it was finally time for me to dump it out and see what's been hiding in there.

So it begins. . . 

The box was so heavy that there was no way I could move it from the garage into the house. It took a few trips back and fourth from the garage to empty the entire box of fabric. I dumped everything into the living room and the first thing I thought after surveying all the fabric was, "damn I have a lot of fabric".

My cat and dog enjoying the mess.

I know I was not going to use all the fabric I had collected. So I divided the fabrics into piles. One pile would be for pieces I didn't mind donating. Another pile would be pieces that I thought my daughter would like to use for her sewing projects. And then the final pile would be for fabric that I would actually use in the next twelve months. If any of this fabric is not used within twelve months, then it will be donated as well. I don't have the luxury of a sewing room or a big area to store things, so I will only keep what I plan to use.

Attempting to sort fabric into manageable piles 

It took a good part of the morning, but I managed to get everything sorted and the living room back to normal.

Here is all that remains of my fabric stash

My fabric is now sorted by color into gallon size Ziploc bags and housed snugly in a draw.