How to NOT Buy Fabric!

Hello Again Stashbusting Friends,

  Once again I did not photograph my new favorite blouse, or do my tutorial for you, or any of what I had planned. My Korean language classes started up again and my little brain is feeling squished or like part of it is being rewritten as I try to fit another language in there. I'm not complaining though, I've always wanted to learn another language and it's exciting to see it start to take shape but it leaves very little brain power left over for writing the comprehensive, informative and madly witty blog posts I had planned to start doing this year.

Before I start I just want to say this isn't meant to make anyone feel bad and I don't want to sound harsh because that's not my intention. I want to help you and me live in freedom with our stuff.

Everyone on twitter is going through withdrawals, (Hi Guys! I also got on twitter! Come find me!) so I thought why not post something already partially written. Finally! Time for some photos!

Look it's my itty bits stash and my ribbon and elastic drawers.

More small pieces and sadly I do serge in that mess. 

Oh look! Some coherent thought:

It has been a great year and I’ve learned a lot about my fabric buying habits. If your goal was like mine, to use up all the excess fabric you have accumulated and not buy any more than my existing space can hold, you don’t want to go back out and make the same choices that landed you in that situation in the first place. Here’s some tips I’ve learned to keep the stash under control 

Delete all the emails! No matter who they're from; Connecting Threads, Fabric.com, Girl Charlee, etc. Don’t even read them. It's marketing at work!  If you can’t see it you can’t realize how necessary it is to your life and you can’t purchase it. 

Ask yourself, "Will I live long enough to sew all this fabric up?" Cindy's tip on thinking of fabric as sewing time explains this clearly. 

Only Shop with a plan or plans. Depending on what you sew you may only need one or maybe all of these plans. 
Personal Sewing: Know what you love to wear/sew with. Make a list of the holes in your wardrobe that you want to fill. List the patterns you have and want to make and the kind of fabric you need to make them.
Basics list. Those go to colors or neutrals or staples. The cream knit you always need for undershirts or leggings. Buy it when you see it. But don’t be like my Alzheimer's lady who bought a tube of toothpaste every time we went to the grocery store. She had ten, twelve, brand new, still in the box, large tubes of toothpaste under her bathroom sink. Don’t have fabric Alzheimer's.

Random Sewing for Others: If you don’t already have what you need in your stash make up personal lists for the individuals you sew for or buy only what you need for that project. I know the not-nieces and nephew’s favorite colors that I may occasionally buy but otherwise I buy what I need for the project I’m going to make for that person only after I've found.
Quilting/Home Decor: Keep a list of what you have so you can make an intelligent buy. Think about how much fabric you have now and how many quilts you will have to make before it is gone. 

Some other things I do,

• Start a Pinterest Board. Mine's called Fabric I Want To Wear. For some reason when I pin it it makes me all happy and it feels like it's mine!

  

  I just realized this may be a good way to figure out my colors too..

• Remember the pieces you love already at home languishing away unused in piles everyone kicks. Remember those you live with giving you the hairy eyeball as you truck more fabric into the house. Remember your checkbook balance. Remember whatever you need to remember to guilt you into not buying more fabric. Just try to make it positive cause according to Inception, "positive emotion trumps negative emotion every time."

  

  I'm not even sure what all's in this pile... but I sew right next to it.

• Just say NO! Just say, "No". Say it with my guys, "No." 
• Remember you'll forget! Hehe, really though in two weeks or a month we won't remember that fabric we had to have. We will remember this!

Oh yellow fabric I still haven't used... I'll get to you eventually. 

Sadly this isn't even the bulk of my stash. I can't show you it cause it would give away part of the curating challenges coming up... I counted and there's over 150 pieces of fabric not shown. 

So do you have any tips for NOT buying fabric?