Sweet F.A.

Hello.  My name is Sarah, and I am a Fabric Addict.
Seriously, I'm afraid I'm starting to see this could become a bit of a problem...

I don't really know when it started.  Some of my earliest memories are watching mum sewing, making me things.  I think my stash started when I was about 18.  Remnants and Grassmarket / Morningside charity shop bits 'n' pieces.  Just to make my room look pretty, you know.  Then a year or two later there was Prazers...  A beautiful district in Lisbon, where I had to go to pick up one of the kids I looked after, which just happened to contain a street with four or five large and fascinating fabric shops.  Which were pretty, and air conditioned.  There was so much fabric....

(havent quite figured the scanner out yet so this'll have to do for now)

(Yes, these are photos of fabric in a fabric shop... Yes that's a bit sad...  but it was the day before I was leaving and I already knew I'd miss sights like this dearly)

It was inevitable I was going to start buying some, I was in yet another room that needed brightening up ;-)  I was asked just what I planned on doing with it all...  I made a few cushion covers.  I was doing a distance learning Interior Design course, and visiting lots of fancy "home" shops at the time.  I think that's where the idea of a quilt came in...  Quilts were pricey.  Fabric was cheap.  I left Lisbon with my first two quilts (the second one never really got finished) and a whopping big suitcase of random bits fabric!

Of course I never did anything with it.  That suitcase sat under my bed gathering dust for years.  But the stash building and the idea of a quilt never left me.  Over the years I built up this.

Even now that I'm learning to quilt, it has sat untouched.  It was bought with a hexie quilt in mind.  It has also remained untouched because I've never stopped gathering bits of fabric...  And to be honest, as much as I still want this bundle to be a big cosy washed out comfy hexie quilt, the fabric just doesn't, well, it doesn't excite me.  I think I am addicted to fabric because fabric itself excites me.  I know, I sound like a right weirdo when I put like that...  but when I see a new print that really catches my eye, I do find it exciting.

I'm not much of an artist, I don't sketch or paint.  Fabric to me is little works of art, little chunks of a colour palette that even I can put together and make something pretty.  And that I think is the key.  Paints and pencils aren't necessarily pretty.  The colours might be nice, but it depends entirely on what you do with them.  Pretty fabric, luscious colours, are going to be pretty no matter how much I mess up what I'm doing.  Touch wood!  lol

So that is my confession - the history and the reasoning behind my fabric addiction, and why I love it.

So what's the deal with saying it might be a problem?  What's wrong is that I'm actually, and you've no idea how much this really pains me to admit, I'm actually running out of places to put it.  I'm quilting as fast as I can, but as it stands I've got one ready to quilt, two tops almost done, 4 patterns designed and fabric for them set aside.  I have at least 5 "bundles" I'm still messing about trying to make designs for.  I think it is fairly safe to say that I have enough to be getting on with.  I have a healthy stash.  And my little sewing cupboard is full...  
But I want more.
No, seriously, I really really want more.

I am trying to go a month not buying any fabric, unless it is genuinely for completing a specific project that really needs it.  The treat at the end will be spending the gift voucher I have.  I have to admit, I am struggling.  I am counting the days.
So, in an effort to stay away from online fabric shops I've cut up my first ever stash...

Its my first go at English Paper Piecing too.   I know I've still got half a dozen other things on the go, but really, when Lynne from Lilys Quilts said she was starting a Hexalong and I'm sat there with an 8yr old bundle for a hexie quilt...  I kind of had to didnt I?!  Starting to wonder if Lynne is actually a mind reader...