Fabric Collector - or Hoarder?

Someone brought up this question in my Yahoo group today. Do you hoard or collect fabric? Sometimes we say we "collect" fabric - it sounds so much better and more dignified and that's what I will tell people from now on. But I also think I secretly "hoard" my favorite pieces of older scraps a little too much sometimes. I love them and savor them and can't part with them. I will never find some of those prints again and, if I use them up, I will miss seeing them in my bags of scraps! So silly. I have to tell myself they will be much better off in a quilt where I can look at them all the time. But it IS more like hoarding, don’t you think? 

 

Hoarding has gotten a bad rap since that TV show about sick people "collecting" stuff they cannot part with, things that remind them of painful losses they cannot get over easily. I looked up the definition of hoarding and it said that, in archaeology,  artifact hoarders sometimes died before retrieving their valuable treasure of hoards! OMG - I know they will find my little fabric pieces after I'm gone and say: "What the heck was she thinking??"

 

 

My current baskets of scraps, waiting to be sorted. Ho hum.

 

I also know I am not alone here and that many of you are much much worse than I am. I have seen some of your closets LOL. But I am bad enough. (I will never take a picture of my closet, of that you can be sure.) Someone e-mailed me recently and asked if my sewing room was messy or neat.  All I can say is I do the best I can. Some days are better than others, depending upon whether or not I want to eat, or bathe or do anything else. What can I say?

 

Yes, I save my scraps! Anything over 1 1/2 inches!

 

 

You know you're in trouble when - OMG, is that a cradle full of scraps?? Where will the baby sleep??

 

 

 

But I DO organize my scraps sometimes -  Don't laugh, here's a basket full of larger scraps that I'm going to use in my Dear Jane quilt . . . . someday.

 

 

 

 

These are often pretty neat and accessible. Not really scraps, just smaller cuts I will use someday. (Yes, I am still "hoarding" that blue wavy fabric left over from my Orange Peel quilt!) No, they are not always nicely folded if I am busy or in a hurry to move on to something else and need to get them off the cutting table.

 

 

 

More, waiting to be sorted. Oh dear.

Question:  Am I really really ever going to use that little green piece? Best Answer: You never know. Better save it just in case.

 

 

Maybe we can call ourselves "Stockpilers" until they decide to make a TV show about that and ruin it. That got me thinking and here's what I want to know  - why aren’t there any situation comedies about quilters, I ask you? Or even dramas? Someone should come up with a medical show where quilters get hurt using their rotary cutters or dropping their featherweights on their feet and cute doctors save them . . . . How about a  "Quilting  Police" drama . . .  "Knock, knock – you're under arrest! Your piecing is awful!"

Perhaps a reality show with quilters confessing to their fabric addictions. Quilting Interventions! Where caring guild members and friends intervene to save the lives of too-far-gone quilters whose families are starved for food and attention. Wait - a brand new season of  "Lost!" (featuring quilters wandering around, asking: where did I put my ruler, thread, glasses, that pattern I just bought??)

I'd settle for an episode of Dr Phil - Why Quilters Quilt and How Quilting Affects Their Housekeeping. (I might volunteer to be on that show. But not if Maury or Springer did it, because then I might have to get naked or reconnect with long-lost family members . . . . ) Homes of the Rich & Famous Quilters. Some of you might even cough up for cable just to see  this one, that's how unbelievable it would be. I could go on and on . . .  .

 

 

Puppy says - "Mom, will you stop playing around with your fabric, the camera and the computer and please let me out!"

Have a good weekend. This coming Monday is Labor Day in the U.S., a day that many have off  work. I will be doing last-minute shopping and helping my daughter get all her stuff ready to go back to college. No rest for the weary parents! Remember, the September  challenge quilt will be posted AFTER Sept 1,  maybe Sept 4 or 5, we'll see how it goes.