A comment on the blog made me start thinking about this. What if we know we have enough fabric or yarn or floss (whatever we use) to last longer than we will probably live but say we’re making a quilt and we need an orange-ish red or we don’t have the perfect blue? We can make do or we can order 1/2 yard of what we hope is the right red, or if we’re lucky, we can buy it locally and know right off the bat if it will work. It has taken me a long time to get to this point. It was just easier to order or buy more fabric than figure out something that would work but wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.
I’ve said many times that I’m not buying anything else and yet I always end up buying. I may do the same thing this year . . who knows? For so many years, I got a lot of satisfaction from buying fabric or yarn but I do think I’ve reached a point where I get more satisfaction from realizing I don’t have my first choice of fabric or yarn but I can come up with a very good substitute from the stash and make it work. It’s a bit of a personal challenge I guess.
I always do better with a challenge vs. a restriction. Tell me “You cannot buy more fabric!” and I’m itching to find fabric to buy. Tell me “I bet you cannot stitch everything you want to stitch this year from the linen you have at home!” and I’m on it because I am not backing down from a challenge.
I’m looking at the “buy less in 2024” decision not as something I have to do because the bins are full and Social Security may end some day . . I’m doing it to prove to myself that I can do it.
Pat Anderson says
I’m right there with you! I am going to try to do better in 2024, too!
vivoaks says
…I HAVE to do better this year. I haven’t touched my sewing machine in over two months, but I’ve bought fabric several times in that amount of time. I ran out of places to keep my fabric a long time ago; so much so that I have no time or patience to look for anything that “might work.” My objective this year is to organize, organize, organize…. I’d like to be able to find something when I need it, and it’s not happening right now. Wish me luck! 🙂
Nic says
I think I’m a bit of an in-between. When I’m planning a project, I’ll go through my rather large stash to pick out all of the fabric I have that could work together for the vision I have. But then I might need to get some additional fabric to go with it. I do try to keep that additional fabric to just background fabric though – as that’s something that I was good about not stocking up on.