Six-Step Process for Fabricaholics

September 20, 2011September 16, 2011 Elizabeth E.1 Comment

To every addict comes a time when they must admit they have overstepped the line and must seek help. Hence, a fabric-aholics Six-Step Process, condensed down from a 12-step process therapy.

1. Take everything out of your fabric closet, your fabric shelves, and leave it in a heap while your husband/spouse/other walks in and says nothing. Their eyes say it all. Like, Wow.

2. Refold the fabrics because we all know that really helps. Because you can always get more in the closet after you refold them, right? And because scientific studies have proven that working with tactile items keeps the old blood pressure down. It’s a health issue.

3. Start putting them back in. Realize that you’ll never get your stash back in its “box” after its been sprung. Organized fabrics take WAAAY more space.

4. Re-think your organization plan. Try sorting them by color groups — only six: yellow, green, blue, red, purple, grays (see photo). Browns? Decide if they are a yellow-brown or an orange-brown or a yellow-orange brown because that’s the basic three places brown comes from. (I learned this in college. I give it to you now, free of charge.) Or you can group the browns/blacks together. Put the darkest of the colors on the bottom of the color stack. Or try organizing by theme: like those food fabrics you’ve been collecting since you learned how to thread a needle. It was always going to be a “basket quilt” and now you look at some of them and wonder if you could stand to see them in a quilt.

5. Realize that you have accumulated enough fabric for 20 years worth of quilts. Why? We need to subdivide this category. These observations are not all autobiographical, but come from almost forty years of being a quilter/involved with fabric (before I was a quilter, I was a sewer and don’t even kid yourself — they’re stashers too):
a) you were at a quilt show and we all know they spray fabric pheromones in the air at those events, or
b) you were shopping with friends and they bought some, and you didn’t want to be left out, so you did too, or
c) you were feeling blue and needed a little cheering up, or
d) you were taking a class with _________ (fill in the blank) and needed more yellow-green, or
e) it was a beautiful day (weather or other) and you just felt like a stroll through a fabric store would be a great thing and you noticed the clearance racks, or
f) you are doing your part to help the economy and your local fabric store, or
g) the online email that your favorite online shop sent you had that new line and while you were really excited about only four of the prints, their fat-quarter bundle of nine prints would be a better bargain, or
h) it was a really horrid day (weather or other) and you just felt like visiting those people who you have made friends with at your local shop would cheer your day, or
i) you were in the mood for some new fabric, or
j) you saw a quilt on the blogs or in a magazine that you wanted to make, and of course, this required new fabric, or
k) you are a blogger and have to have something new to show on the blog, or
l) ______________ (fill in the blank).

6. Realize that you will probably always buy fabric (here’s where we differ from traditional 12-step programs) but that a little restraint now and again would be a good idea. And if you are going to buy, consider making a quick quilt or two to give away to a woman’s shelter, or the Quilts of Valor , Home of the Brave, or other such charitable and worthy causes** such as 100 Quilts for Kids because they don’t need the latest fabric and you can use up the stash at the back of the closet.

But most of all, enjoy the process! Enjoy the new idea, the cutting out with friends or while listening to a great book, the stitching (gives you time to think about your loved ones) the colors coming together, the design working, and the glorious finished quilt top. Because if you fill yourself up with high-quality experiences while creating out of cloth, it will satisfy you far longer than a stack of fabrics in your closet. I love my Come A-Round quilt, and I still savor the many months it took to create. I have stories associated with all my quilts, and they are my legacy.

They’ll be yours, too.

(**Caveat: don’t give the charities junk! I worked with a woman’s shelter quilt drive once and we had to pitch a few smelly quilts (think: mildew) and quilts that were made of sub-standard fabric. Just throw that shoddy stuff away and don’t acquire any more.)

Inspiration

September 12, 2011September 13, 2011 Elizabeth E.Leave a comment

An example of ikebana, the art of arranging flowers.

Mirei Shigemori and Sofu Teshigahara felt ikebana was so important as an artform they created the New Ikebana Declaration.

“New ikebana rejects nostalgic feelings.
We can’t find a vivid world in anything nostalgic.
There is nothing but calmly sleeping beauty in the nostalgic world.
New ikebana rejects formal fixation. Creation alway brings forth a fresh form.
Fixed form is like a gravestone.”

Shigemori went off to to do his wonderful garden work and Sofu became a number one believer in ikebana as an art form. (from Julia Ritson)

I’ve seen a lot quilt blocks in my life. Lots. I have books and books of quilts and I love looking at them and getting ideas. But I often try to find a new way to create in this fabric grid of the quilt world.

Maybe I’m channeling Teshigahara?

Creating · Something to Think About

Don’t Just Do Something. . .Stand There

August 20, 2011 Elizabeth E.1 Comment

The title of this post is taken from an LA Times article of the same name, and it extols the idea of “down time,” or “space time,” or “staring at the wall and watching the paint dry” time. A quote:

The short story writer Grace Paley also spoke up in praise of idleness. “I have a basic indolence about me which is essential to writing,” she said in an interview. “It really is. Kids now call it space around you. It’s thinking time, it’s hanging-out time, it’s daydreaming time. You know, it’s lie-around-the-bed time, it’s sitting-like-a-dope-in-your-chair time. And that seems to me essential to my work.”

Another related article talks about the importance of idle time. A quote:

Until recently, scientists would have found little of interest in the purposeless, mind-wandering spaces between Mrazek’s conscious breakfast-making tasks — they were just the brain idling between meaningful activity. But in the span of a few short years, they have instead come to view mental leisure as important, purposeful work — work that relies on a powerful and far-flung network of brain cells firing in unison.

Maybe that’s what’s going on with me today–just can’t seem to get traction in my off-time. I’ve decided it takes WAY more effort to start a project than it does to finish one. I may decide something different tomorrow. But for now–I’m just standing here. Doing nothing.

**illustration is done by Christopher Serra / For The Los Angeles Times

Something to Think About · WIP

WIP–Details, Details

August 10, 2011 Elizabeth E.4 Comments

Thanks to Lee, of Freshly Pieced for hosting this forum.

Coming home from vacation is such an interesting feeling. I read your blogs and your comments on Facebook and you seem to slide from one zone to another, effortlessly. I, however, have had quite a “re-entry” from my time away. Perhaps that’s because there aren’t children around anymore to pull and push me into activity. I did spend close to 10 hours on the computer the first day home getting things to the print center where I teach, then a haircut, laundry, College Orientation on the second day home, which brings me here to WIP Wednesday, and that freshly laundered handkerchief on the ironing board. So the details of today are laundering and pressing the handkerchief and vintage fabrics (hoping that musty smell leaves soon—any tips?)

More details include making a label for summer’s last quilt.

A little more hand-stitching tonight as I watch one more Harry Potter movie–I’m on Number 4. A friend dropped by her collection so I could watch them all at once before going out to see the latest.

And I’m listening to Last Town on Earth, by Thomas Mullen, while I work. Riveting fiction–I highly recommend it.

My husband and I have been retracing our steps of many years ago. Yesterday I said to him, “And today was the day we packed all my four children into our new mini-van and drove to Utah. Did I drop you off at your parents’ house before I went up to Ogden to stay at my parents’?”

“Yes. I slept on their old sofa, as my childhood bedroom was full of my sister’s kids.”

Many years ago today was the last day my beloved sweetheart had his bachelor status, and tonight we’ll talk about the “rehearsal dinner” in a park with all his nieces and nephews and my children and his sisters and brothers and my sisters and brothers and our parents coming in together in a great picnic. That night he and I worried about different things: I worried that my children wouldn’t fit in, that the blending of the family would be too much for the both of us. He worried about finances and how we were going to make it through all the college years, even though the oldest was only 14 at the time. But what we didn’t worry about was our love and commitment to each other. Yes, many years ago the small details seemed to be detritus, like little bugs buzzing around the grand event of our marriage. But this week we enjoy them, think about them, recall them and relish the bits and pieces and patchwork of our wedding day.