Is the first week in September, your real New Year? I’s mine! Between school/university aged-children, and the change in season, I think of it as the beginning of the new year.

I’m refining my autumn palette and planning my sewing (read more about this in my Wardrobe Architect posts). I will not buy any RTW clothes this year and I want to be more thoughtful about bringing new fabric into my life. This is the perfect time to evaluate my stash and organise my autumn sewing. Here is what I do.

Organise the Autumn Stash

• Clear-out remnants: keep any that are useful for bias binding, bag-making or quilting. The rest are recycled.
• Clear-out old works in progress. Time to either fix them or scrap them.
• Clear-out lengths of fabric that won’t be used. I have some impulse purchases that aren’t me. If I can’t use them in a toile, they’re gone.
• Move summer weight fabrics to the least accessible place in my stash.
• Bring autumn fabrics, that are in my seasonal palette, into my sewing room.
• Tidy-up and organise interfacings. All my interfacings are now rolled onto little tubes (saved from paper towel and wrapping paper), rather than folded. No more creases. Each is wrapped with a label,that tells me what it is.
• Sort old toiles. Recycle if not useful.
• Photograph all fabrics (on my phone) and list in Evernote. I use the app Evernote and a file I call “sewing inventory”, to keep track of my stash and sewing patterns.

Treasures

This is a big job that creates a lot of mess and chaos while it’s going on. I want to really cut out the clutter. But sometimes, clearing-out rewards with treasures.

Look at this Designers Guild cut-velvet remnant that I found.

It fits perfectly with my autumn palette. I love the bags that I made in the Spring; they brought so much extra zing to my wardrobe. I want a tote for Autumn. This fabric is perfect ~ it’s strong and I love the colours and textures. I plan to make a sling shape, with fabric handles, like this, from Plumo.

I may even make it in panels, like this one. I can use the dramatic velvet nap in different directions to get more texture.

Do you find it hard to clear-out your stash? I’ll be offering recycling fabric solutions in my first bi-weekly newsletter. Sign-up if you are interested!