Tag Archives: spring cleaning

Spring Cleaning

I know that Spring Cleaning traditionally starts in the Spring…. but I decided on New Year’s Eve that it was time I actually sorted my fabrics. And I mean properly sorting them, not just looking at them and putting it all back in the cupboard again!

I’m sure I’m not the only person who keeps the offcuts of fabric “just in case” then never actually goes back through it again? I had a surprising amount of offcuts that were just too small to do anything with, so they all went out for the recycling collection as rag.

But what about those offcuts which are a more usable size, and the fabrics that I’ve bought and never got as far as using? I started out buying duvet covers as cheap fabric alternatives (especially useful when you can get a double duvet cover for £11, which has metres of fabric to play with). However, I haven’t used a duvet cover fabric in years, so it’s time for those to be passed on to someone who can make use of them.

A selection of the fabrics in my clear-out

Some of my online purchases over the years, were ones I probably wouldn’t have bought in an actual shop if I could handle them before buying. Things like the purple jersey in that photo above; it’s a lovely colour, but so heavy-weight it would be likely to stretch vertically while being worn. There’s also a lining fabric which came as part of a mystery box which I’m not likely to use as I prefer to add patterned cotton linings to coats. The bright blue fabric in that photos is a sweater fabric which was a lot more delicate than I had anticipated, and not really ideal to make a sweater for the male family member I had in mind.

My faux fur offcuts should still be the right size for someone to make a small cuddly toy, and the striped denim… unfortunately the stripes would be impossible for me to look at while sewing (since I’ve been sewing more, I’ve realised that high contrast patterns are not suitable for my eyes), so that had to go as well.

In total, I had a large charity sack full of fabric to donate, which I’m hoping will come in useful to someone!

I’m not quite finished yet though – I still need to sort the fabrics so they’re stored more logically, and the denims are all in the same box. Then I “just” need to work on sorting patterns (and that could take a long time!).