HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?
This is my "wall of shame." I really shouldn't call it that because it's what I look at when I sit at my sewing machine and I don't like the idea of looking at something with negative connotations. Usually it's just the fabric storage area. Until I look at all those clear plastic boxes. They're what make me groan.
Those boxes hold UFO's. And they've been there with very little change since I moved into this house and put this studio together over 10 years ago. You can see they are all labeled and stacked neatly. And the fabric is all folded and organized by color family and/or type of fabric. The wall is 20 feet long. And it's full - floor to ceiling.
And that's not all of it. There's another corner that holds overflow; mostly leftover batting and other odds and ends. And a couple of project boxes. And if I really wanted to tell all I would show the shower in the bathroom that holds boxes of dress fabric and other non-quilting supplies. I'm not showing you that.
How did it come to this? Where did it all come from? I mean, quilters have stashes. It's like a pantry; we keep things on hand so they're there when we want to make a recipe. Some are staples like rice and cans of soup. Some are exotics like tahini and habanero peppers. But they're things we use from time to time, or bought for a particular dish and had leftovers, or they just showed up one day and we have no idea how they got there.
The fabric I can account for. It's what happens when you live a hundred miles from the nearest fabric store. When you finally get a chance to shop, you shop. You make a list of projects you need supplies for. And you buy extra because you might make a mistake or run out, and it's a day's worth of driving to get back there. While you're there you see stuff you like, and you imagine what you might use it for, and it goes home with you because it's such a big deal to come back. Or you go on a vacation trip, and hit every quilt shop along the road because it's fun, and of course you have to buy something. Or you have a half-formed idea for something you want to make but you're not sure exactly what it will look like so you buy a yard of everything you think might work. The next thing you know you have 20 feet of wire bins, each one holding its special kind of fabric.
And I know where at least half of the UFO bins came from. The top is finished; it just needs to be quilted. But for years I had a fear of machine quilting; even the straight line type using the walking foot scared me because I didn't want to mess up all the work I had already done. And some of them wanted free-motion quilting and that's a whole different level of terror. I'm just now starting to feel like I can do some simple kinds of free motion work, and even then I have to talk myself into it. Meanwhile there's a box with all the leftovers because I don't want to put them back in stash until the quilt is bound and labeled and I'm absolutely sure I won't need that last little bit of cat fabric.
Some of those bins hold long-term projects that I started with no idea that they would get finished any time soon. One of them holds blocks I made with Christmas fabrics that I sewed in between other projects. The idea was when I had enough blocks made I would put them together into a quilt. I don't know what "enough" means; I just know it's more than what I have.
A couple of bins hold projects I started and then got bored with. One is a paper-pieced wall hanging I started when I was just learning paper piecing. I'm no longer happy with some of my fabric choices, but I'm not ready to throw it out and call it a practice piece. One bin holds blocks I acquired in swaps, or made at some workshop or another, One holds appliqued blocks I'm going to put together some day when I find the right fabric to use for sashing.
At some level it's probably true that this wall exists because it can. One of the reasons I bought this house was because it had this separate space that was perfect for a studio. But the truth is that even if I didn't have this space for shelving and bins I would still have the stuff. It would be packed away in giant coffin-sized totes and I wouldn't know what was in any of them and there would be next to no chance I would use any of it. At least I can see it. I know it's there. I can tell in a minute if I have 5 yards of fabric I can use to back a Christmas quilt (I don't). And I can try to visualize how I'm going to rescue that paper-pieced picture.
And that's not all of it. There's another corner that holds overflow; mostly leftover batting and other odds and ends. And a couple of project boxes. And if I really wanted to tell all I would show the shower in the bathroom that holds boxes of dress fabric and other non-quilting supplies. I'm not showing you that.How did it come to this? Where did it all come from? I mean, quilters have stashes. It's like a pantry; we keep things on hand so they're there when we want to make a recipe. Some are staples like rice and cans of soup. Some are exotics like tahini and habanero peppers. But they're things we use from time to time, or bought for a particular dish and had leftovers, or they just showed up one day and we have no idea how they got there.
The fabric I can account for. It's what happens when you live a hundred miles from the nearest fabric store. When you finally get a chance to shop, you shop. You make a list of projects you need supplies for. And you buy extra because you might make a mistake or run out, and it's a day's worth of driving to get back there. While you're there you see stuff you like, and you imagine what you might use it for, and it goes home with you because it's such a big deal to come back. Or you go on a vacation trip, and hit every quilt shop along the road because it's fun, and of course you have to buy something. Or you have a half-formed idea for something you want to make but you're not sure exactly what it will look like so you buy a yard of everything you think might work. The next thing you know you have 20 feet of wire bins, each one holding its special kind of fabric.
And I know where at least half of the UFO bins came from. The top is finished; it just needs to be quilted. But for years I had a fear of machine quilting; even the straight line type using the walking foot scared me because I didn't want to mess up all the work I had already done. And some of them wanted free-motion quilting and that's a whole different level of terror. I'm just now starting to feel like I can do some simple kinds of free motion work, and even then I have to talk myself into it. Meanwhile there's a box with all the leftovers because I don't want to put them back in stash until the quilt is bound and labeled and I'm absolutely sure I won't need that last little bit of cat fabric.
Some of those bins hold long-term projects that I started with no idea that they would get finished any time soon. One of them holds blocks I made with Christmas fabrics that I sewed in between other projects. The idea was when I had enough blocks made I would put them together into a quilt. I don't know what "enough" means; I just know it's more than what I have.
A couple of bins hold projects I started and then got bored with. One is a paper-pieced wall hanging I started when I was just learning paper piecing. I'm no longer happy with some of my fabric choices, but I'm not ready to throw it out and call it a practice piece. One bin holds blocks I acquired in swaps, or made at some workshop or another, One holds appliqued blocks I'm going to put together some day when I find the right fabric to use for sashing.
At some level it's probably true that this wall exists because it can. One of the reasons I bought this house was because it had this separate space that was perfect for a studio. But the truth is that even if I didn't have this space for shelving and bins I would still have the stuff. It would be packed away in giant coffin-sized totes and I wouldn't know what was in any of them and there would be next to no chance I would use any of it. At least I can see it. I know it's there. I can tell in a minute if I have 5 yards of fabric I can use to back a Christmas quilt (I don't). And I can try to visualize how I'm going to rescue that paper-pieced picture.
I love it! Your studio looks fantastic. I ran across a large pile of charm squares the other day that I bought several years ago when I first started sewing. I'm currently making 9 patch squares with them on my treadle machine :). I need to get fabric for the sashing, and then of course back it and quilt it. I say "it", but I'm pretty sure I can make several quilts out of all of these little squares. It's fun because I get to use my new 1920 treadle machine. It's useful because I'm using up fabric I had shoved in a drawer and had forgotten about. And maybe someday they'll be turned into finished quilts that people can actually use to stay warm.
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