Time and Time Again

Once again, I begin.  This time, it is with a purpose in mind.  And hopefully much more discipline involved.  I have a plan.

I have just moved.  As in, last weekend.  And during the process of packing, moving, and recovering from said move, I have discovered, I truly have a problem.  More like an addiction, really.  To be perfectly honest, I have more fabric than I have ANY idea what to do with!  It's crazy how much fabric one (one!!!) person can accumulate in a period of two point five years.  And this is even AFTER I have used some of said fabric in projects, AND donated a great big bunch of it.

Now, faced with the prospect of RE-organizing this mass of fiber I have some decisions to make.  And make them I must.  First, I have to figure out WHAT I will be keeping, and what will be discarded -- either donated or given to like-minded friends/family.  After that icky, time-consuming task is finished, I must then figure out how I am going to STORE whatever fabric is left.  And on that note, I need to completely reorg my entire sewing room, too.  Because while it worked for quite a while, with this new place, I plan on teaching, and it was not set up well for personal sewing AND teaching sewing.  Which means, I need to scrap my current set up -- hardware-wise -- and attack the room with a fresh set of eyes -- and a Professional Organizer named Joan.

To start, I will be using this here blog-thing as a way of documenting my progress of re-org-ing my sewing studio/teaching space, AND to begin talking about my next major project, which sort of combines a bunch of things I've loved throughout my life.  I'll begin by saying this: I am truly a Fiber Nerd.  I LOVE fiber.  When I go shopping -- whether it be for fabric to make things, or clothing which is already constructed -- I touch EVERYTHING!  I can't help but run my hands over garments in a store, just to see what they're made from.  If I like them, I continue touching, usually with a smile on my face.  If they're icky synthetics,  more times than not, I scowl.  Or proclaim, embarrassingly loud that the shirt/pants/dress/etc sucks!  And then proceed to NOT touch said fabric any longer.

So, not only am I a fiber NERD, I am a self proclaimed fiber SNOB!  And I am also quite proud of this.  It has taken YEARS of experience and practice to become THIS disgusted by polyester chiffon.  If I can't stand to touch the fabric on the bolt for three seconds, there is NO way I am going to spend HOURS of my time and energy TOUCHING the fabric to create a garment, only to them WEAR said garment un-told number of hours a day/week/month/year.

So, in oder to spread my nerdy-ness and more importantly, snoby-ness around the globe -- or at least to my friends -- I plan on creating a data-base of sorts to define fabric content, care, and creations.  Think of it as a Wiki, after a fashion.  It will be searchable, cross-referenced, and will include plenty of photos of beautiful fabrics as well.  Eventually I would love to be able to have users request swatches from me, to have lovely little bits of fabric at THEIR finger-tips while ordering online, or shopping in good 'ol brick-and-mortar shops.

So, this is the plan.  One of them, at the very least.  It's now been three weeks since the move, and I still have a sewing room that looks as though a class 9 hurricane blew through on some errand of destruction.  So, although no visible progress has actually been made, I have quite a few plans in the, er, planning stage.  Possibly the next post will even involve pictures!  What a concept.  We'll see.  Later for now,

~j.b. fiber nerd, extaordinaire