I plan to make the most of this year. As long as it is January, it is not too late to make a New Year’s Resolution. I have been thinking about this one for a while and I believe it will work. Some resolutions fall by the wayside, daunting tasks that don’t last the week and I won’t let that happen this time. This year I resolve to make the most of what I have. So much of my life revolves around the “more”. I need more fabric, more time, more money... Somehow I forget to stop and appreciate how much I have. Really I have a lot, I am just not making the most of it.

Last year I vowed to bust my stash. I started with meticulous tallies of fabric used, bought and stored. Some fellow busters had farsighted goals of using 100m of fabric a month. Personally, I just wanted to end up with less than I started with. I kept it up, until starting on a quilt that required a lot of new fabric. The resolution had become cumbersome and made my fabric sound like a waste product in need of disposal. I confessed to my fabric gluttony and stopped counting*. Not only did my resolution feel like a chore, it looked like a failure.

I do not like the way I have been feeling about my fabric. Tackling my crafting space has felt equally cumbersome. I end up moving, relocating and repacking an ever growing pile of fabrics and notions. My stash has become a burden, a heavy weight of stuff destined to topple and engulf me. Treating my craft space as a stash is not making the most of what is there.

First up, I am throwing away the word STASH**. It sounds like something a pack rat would have. How can a word that rhymes with trash sum up the beauty and wonder of a these textile possibilities? There are some treasures in there. They are all treasures in there. I know they must be, otherwise I wouldn’t have them. I am going to make the most of 2010 throwing away the stash and taking more care to treasure my collection.

Treasuring a collection does not mean just adding to it. It means putting it to use, and taking every opportunity to showcase it. Rather than waiting for the perfect project and elusive spare time, I will get into using my collection and showing it the light of day. Instead of seeing using existing fabric as a “must do” it will become a privilege. I am going to make the most of it.





*It wasn’t a total failure. Tallies and chores are just not my thing. Celebrations are more me and I kept on sewing. As I sewed, I kept a little of each piece. The selvedges were carefully secreted away for use at a later date. Without realising it, I was still counting and along the way have a reminder, little scraps that jog memories of fabric that were a wonder to work with. There are even some donations of selvedges from friends in there. With the help of a calculator and kitchen scales I can report that I have used about 23m of fabric over the last year and it was fun.

**I think this might mean I have successfully managed to bust my stash, without meaning to.