Stash Toss

I may have mentioned that I have too many hobbies.  I sew—clothes, quilts, household goods, toys, costumes.  I knit—socks, lace, sweaters, toys, apple jackets.  I make crafty little weird things from time to time.  I encourage my children to do the same.  Their projects often involve small pieces of wood and copious amounts of scotch tape and glue.  And also sometimes paint.  I write—yes, I think right now this counts as a hobby, so seldom do I do it, but I aspire to shift this from hobby to, well, to something more involved at some point.  Oh, and I used to be a runner, and hope someday to be one again.  

That doesn’t count reading, which isn’t so much a hobby as a need.  And cooking, ditto need.  And gardening, which truthfully doesn’t involve me as often as it does Partner, but I’m there in a pinch.  

Each of these activities has accumulated stuff.  Reading: books.  Gardening:  uh, dirt, and vegetables, gloves, tools, blisters.  Knitting:  yarn, needles, scissors, patterns.  Sewing: boxes and boxes of fabric, and stuffing, elastic, buttons, snaps, velcro, thread, patterns and two sewing machines (ok, one is a serger and I haven’t actually used it successfully yet, but I’m hopeful).  

The craft stuff has filled an entire closet in my house.  I’ve admitted to my yarn stash being fairly reasonable and modest.  After tossing the craft closet, the yarn now occupies two plastic file boxes and one plastic blanket bag.  The fabric is another story altogether—several bins, a couple of garbage bags, and slouchy stacks.  

All of this stuff wears down my brain.  Even when it is successfully crammed into the closet with the door shut, I know it is there, occupying space.  Making me feel guilty with the unfulfilled promise and possibility that all of those raw materials represent.  

Before his death, trying to finish one last album before cancer finished him off, Warren Zevon noted about his love of reading that buying new books does not buy the time it takes to read them.  Not the happiest thought, but it is a realistic assessment that each of us has only a limited amount of time in any day, week or life, and that the accumulation of stuff does not magically expand our hours.  

When I shop (which I really dislike doing), I often ask myself the basic question, ‘Do I need this?’  That’s fairly easy to answer, but harder often is the next question, ‘Do I have time for this?’  I can cascade from there into sub-questions about whether I’m willing to make time for something that I need or something that I will find fulfilling for other reasons.  This basic personal consumption questioning has helped to keep the stashes under some semblance of control.  

Fabric and yarn are difficult for me though.  I can see the possibility in every piece of fabric I have.  The things that I could make.  I have the skill, the creativity, the enthusiasm.  So when someone says, ‘Hey, I don’t need this fabric/these bedsheets/this old quilt/this yarn, would you like to have it?’  I often can’t say no, especially if they are walking to the trash can as they say it.  When the yarn or fabric is super-cheap, I often can’t say no.  But the generosity of neighbors, the lure of a good deal, the infinite possibilities that those materials could become, do not give me the extra time to actually use them.  

So, in the interest of simplifying my closets, life, brain/clutter distress, I tossed my craft closet last night.  I wanted to be firm.  I planned ahead.  I had decided to keep all yarn, but sort it (and, oh, did I find some of the flashiest, sluttiest red mohair yarn that I did not know I had—I would link to a pic, but it’s discontinued and I can’t find it online: Pingouin Panache Mohair.  I don’t even know where it came from.  Yarn fairies?  There are at least two lace scarves coming out of that).  I had decided to keep fabric that I like that would be useful in the creation of quilts (I will quilt again.  I will.  I feel a moral compunction here.  I made quilts for some friends/family for their babies, and feel certain that I will want to do the same again for future babies.  Also, my sonars are outgrowing their kid quilts, and one day I will want to make them growing-up quilts that fit their big bodies.)  I had decided to keep any garment fabric that was already cut or paired with a specific pattern.  In other words, I would finish what I’d started in there.  

Out the door I had planned to throw all other apparel fabric, all weird fabric, all upholstery fabric, all stinky fabric (I inherited a bunch of stuff from my grandmother’s garage), all ugly fabric, and any clothes that were beyond reasonable mending.  

The will is strong in theory and weak in the face of the actual stuff.  

As I started to unload the closet, I was struck by how much more stuff was in there than I realized.  It really was worse than I thought.  Some things were easy:  8 yards of stinky, yellow, knit terry cloth.  Gone.  Ditto the 50 yards of stinky, navy, woven terry.  I fudged a bit, keeping the old sheets because I thought they might make a good bottom layer for summer quilts.  I completely faltered at the fleece-lined neoprene.  I mean, seriously, I know it’s red and black, and I know I bought it for a ridiculously low price, but what if one of the Sonars needs a wet-suit one day?  I could make it!!  It could happen.  We do live on the coast.  Maybe one of them will become a surfer.  Or a kiteboarder.  

It was painful.  Two hours later I had two large trashbags full of fabric to freecycle.  Which is good.  But I really did want to get rid of more.  I am left with one giant bin full of quilting fabric (loosely defined).  A giant bin of various works in progress, and apparel fabric that I just couldn’t get rid of (the pink/orange/drapey Hawaiian print that my grandma bought a whole bolt of on vacation 800 years ago and which she begrudgingly shared 3 yards with me, among other things).  A smaller bin full of upholstery fabric, which is really just too handy and versatile to part with (and oh, what if I need drapes sometime?).  In there is also about half of the array of lining fabrics that I inherited from my mother-in-law (seriously, we could have lined anything to match.  The woman had collected everything from shell pink to blood red to chocolate brown to caramel paisley—I kept the caramel paisley).  There is a file box full of patterns.  Ditto a file box full of notions (which really needs its own toss, but I was too drained to do it last night).  

Remind me not to look in the garbage bags again before I get rid of it.  I might take stuff out.  

Do I have time now to knit the slutty red lace?  

Comments

[Anonymous]

GO YOU!!!

Way to stay strong, hon. Do not look in the giveaway bags. Just send them to a new home and breathe easier.

I, too, am undergoing massive clutter cleaning...with varying degrees of success. I recycled or put to shredding about 10 loads of paper (scary) from my work office, which streamlined my packing greatly. I need to do more, but it's a start.

Now at home I have one clothes closet and the rest of my home office to sort. The latter makes me exhausted thinking about it, so small chunks. I need to do a few more sections this weekend.

But you're right...it's all about balancing and tempering the allure of the possibilities: for projects, for gifts, for thought experiments, for rainy day occupations, for interesting crafty moments.

Stay strong, gf! And wish me luck, bec. I'll so need it. :P

Hugs,
Astraea