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October 8, 2021
Our stash can be a source of real inspiration or a source of headaches. One of the things I learned when moving to my forever home, was that I had really been good about having just what I needed in my closet, but hadn't been that good about what I needed in my stash. IOW, I had a bunch of stuff in there that not only would I never use, but if I did, it would look horrible on me.
Here's my current stash on the end of my cutting table - mostly brewing and cooking to see what I can come up with. I've had a need for rusts, oxblood red, and warmer richer reds in my closet lately, and these are a few that are cooking up for this winter.
So what is it that possesses us to think that having more is going to be better than what we have right now. There's the proverbial "dog with the bone looking at his reflection in the water," story that helps us understand that, but this is almost visceral that we have to have more.
There are several good guidelines to use when buying for your stash, and therefore your wardrobe, and the first one is a gem. Here are some helpers to make your stash wonderful and as a result your wardrobe wonderful. After all if you can't get those awful pieces in your stash, you don't have to feel guilty about not using them!
1. Clean out your stash. This is the first place to start. If your stash isn't lean and mean to begin with, it ain't gerna get better by adding more stuff to it. Clean it out well.
2. Color. We all have certain palettes, so that means we all can't wear all colors. Simply because you do not have a color in your wardrobe does NOT mean that you need to have it in your wardrobe. It's possibly not there because it's not a good color for you. One of my favorite books on this is Color Me Beautiful. It's older, but it still works, and I've used it with my clients forever with huge success.
I can not say enough about color. It can truly be a deal breaker. When I was apprenticing under my mentor, I did several "blue" white suits, but they never seem to sing the way other clothes I had did. I couldn't figure this out, cause I thought my execution was excellent and my mentor couldn't argue with me. Finally I made the same suit in cream (a warm white), and it was like angels singing. It worked instantly and I learned a very valuable
lesson on what may seem to be very slight feature of a garment.
Here's another side benefit, but no less important, of color. When you start working in the color palette (a collection of colors that works well for you), you end up with some very happy accidents. It's amazing how well the colors go together. Looking at the photo of my current "to do's" on the end of my cutting table, almost all of these work together.
I purchased the floral w/black background as a coordinate with the fabric right under it, but look at how well it goes with the salmon under the rusty-red? Not only that but that light Nile green goes just as well with that dark-background floral. And all of these work with the gold/green white background on the upper
right. To be honest, I'm really shocked at some of these colors that match beautifully. I really didn't have anything in mind for the two lower right fabrics, but they are dead-on in my color palette, and so they will go into the stash to be matched and toned with other prints. I bought 5 yards of it cause it's a great beefy knit from Robert Kaufman. This is a domestic firm that makes really fabulous knits and fabrics that are sturdy and last forever. I
highly recommend them.
3. Darks and Lights. We all need darks and lights in our stash because we have those parts of our bodies that we like (and they are in the light-shaded fabrics), and there are parts we don't like (and they are in the dark-shaded fabrics). I know you may get tired of wearing dark pants if you're hippy or dark tops if you're chest heavy, but dang, this really does work wonders on the figure.
4. Styles. Our style changes as we mature and when we were young and frivolous and wore short dresses as a matter of habit, we wouldn't be seen dead in those when we're older. Then there are the events and happenings that make up our style, as we mature from the carpool days to the parent of high-schoolers, we need something more versatile for the Friday-night football games to the graduations and even more for those college events that happen as a
parent. Finally we get to the point where we are more relaxed in retirement. But through all of those phases, it's just as vital to look modern but not weird and responsible but not frumpy. Your stash should reflect your age. You may not have made up all that more formal fabric you had when your kids and their friends were getting married, and probably don't need it now, so it can go. At the same time, you have reached an age where you are really more
interested in being comfortable, but not sweat pants - please!!!
So keep your stash pertinent to your style and how you want to live your life and how you want to look and the image you want to project. This matters no matter if you're new to the working force, a carpooling mom, a professional, or retired. You are no less important in one phase than another, and you need to reflect that as you move from one phase to another.
5. Organized. Yeah, I know this falls into the clean-up category, and probably one of the least exciting things to do, but organizing your stash can be a real boon to your creativity. Even if it's in colors, that's good enough. I actually like to organize mine according to use, a casual section, and a little dressier section, with my wovens in one area and my knits in another can mean a huge turn-on for the muse to come visit.
The best thing to do here is to figure out how you would like to use your stash. Do you use it for ideas? Do you have a need and need to fill it, so you pretty much know what you want, and looking for something specific? Do you stand in front of your stash waiting to get inspired? These can be clear guidelines on how to organize your stash for how you want to use it. These may be questions you haven't even asked yourself about your stash use, and they are
very important. Maybe there are other questions or answers that come into your mind when you look at your stash - looking for specific color, looking for a look. Make the organization work for you by thinking about how is the best way to find what you need.
6. Anti-Clutter. In Feng Shui (the ancient Chinese art of placement), one of the very helpful tenets is keep your space arranged neatly. Now, of course this doesn't mean while you're working, but after you've finished for the day, neaten up your work into stacks that will be simple and easy to start for the next day or next time you are in your studio. Your stash should be the same way. Keeping your stash lean and mean, means that you
don't have a bunch of superfluous and irrelevant stuff in your stash that means you do not have a bunch of superfluous and irrelevant stuff in your wardrobe. That in itself is worth the effort to keep your stash pertinent and useful.
7. Care. Yeah, this isn't so much a guideline, but it's as important. You have to take care of your stash. Your biggest enemies are bugs, light and mold. So that means you have to protect it against those elements. If you're storing on the floor in a one-level home, or in a basement, consider buying those wonderful storage boxes at Home Depot (personally I like the ones you can see-thru), and then you can store the rest on shelves.
Light is a killer, especially on silk which doesn't hold dye well. And it's worse when the fabric is folded and the outside fold is faded but nothing else is, meaning that whole fold like will have to be discarded, cut around or worse, trashed because the fabric is unusable.
Another problem with light is that it can often corrode the fibers in the fabric to the point that the fabric will literally fall apart. Too many times, I've had clients bring me a real "steal" on a very famous designer, only to start with alterations to discover not only is the color on the inside of the seam different, but the fabric has disintegrated to the point that it is tearing apart. Taking a piece of fabric that has faded, and then weakened to the point
that it's no longer usable is just as heart-breaking as the faded coloring.
Finally, the bane of every sewist's stash - moths, but also silverfish, cockroaches (eeeeuuuwwww), carpet beetles, crickets and termites. Sounds special doesn't it? (Ick!) Too many times, well-meaning friends have brought me special pieces of fabric that are excellent - well really beyond excellent cause I know where they got them, and I always check out the fabric before it comes into my home, and almost always it's filled with very suspicious holes.
And there's nothing you can do but throw away it all. The cure, if you really want to keep it is to send it to a dry cleaners, and then have them treat it, and then keep it quarantined to make sure you have no more bugs before you can even think about bringing it into your stash. It's as much heart-breaking for me as it is for the friend who gave it to me, cause I have to turn around and tell her to check her entire stash to make sure it isn't all infected, cause most
likely it is. For some of my most special wools (my family tartan in dress and hunter versions), I have sealed in a plastic bag with moth balls to prevent any infection from bugs. But I also keep one of those sticky boxes and pads (I get them from Walmart, where they are tons cheaper than the roach motel
models), and these will keep the cockroaches and the crickets at a minimum. They will also trap mice, which aren't so much a damage to the stash, but still not nice to have around. Do check them periodically cause the mice do stink if you don't get rid of them.
Another cure that is a failsafe is moth balls. They can really keep your stash clean. Yeah I know the smell is atrocious, but if it's really bad, I will let the piece air out for a couple of days, and it's not nearly as bad. If you're really sensitive to it, you can have it cleaned, and this time the cleaning will be worth is cause you know you have a great piece of fabric.
I know this sounds awful, but I have some very valuable wools - cashmere and alpaca and moths absolutely adore that stuff. They go for the expensive super-fine before they hit the cheapo Joann's poly/wool blends. And there's nothing worse than opening up a treasured cashmere or wool and seeing a few missing holes and discovering that not only is this piece contaminated, but likely other pieces are as well.
There are so many benefits to this and some you may not even have thought about.
There's the benefit that you won't have a bunch of fabric that is no longer useful, making you feel guilty for not making it up. But what happens is that one you let it go, donate it, get it out of your stash, the guilt is gone - that's it. So think of this as a way of riding yourself of any guilt because you haven't used something (that you probably didn't use for a good reason).
Then there's the benefit that not only what you see in your stash is useful, but you will not believe how the muse runs amok in this sort of environment and suddenly you're hit with multi-ideas about what to do. I can't help but get ideas while looking at my stash and it's for a good reason - because everything in the stash is something that fits my style, my look, my mood, my coloring, my.....
Finally there's the lack of clutter, and this is always a good thing. I have gotten to the point that I've stopped collecting clothes just to have a lot of clothes. I love those outfits that are 5 years old, and then find another top that goes with the pants of an old outfit. This happens more and more when you are using some good guidelines.
Hopefully this will help you organize your stash to provide you with what you need AND what you want, but not what can be a maize of mess to work through. And once you're started this, it's so much easier to keep it going. This also makes shopping so much easier. Yes, that glittery fabric looks great, but where can you wear it?...how will it be used? Yes, that blue is great and you like blue, but unfortunately blue is not your color, so why waste your time
making something in blue when it won't look good, no matter how well you fit and execute the garment.
This is the quintessential toolbox for the wannabe designer, and you don't even have to draw to use them. All you have to do is trace. That may sound just a little too far-fetched, but believe me, not all designers can draw, and most of them do not sew. So you are one up on most designers.
This package includes a lot:
Elements & Principles of Design w/Color
Proportion (Divine and Rule of Thirds) and Apex Point Fitting
and something new:
 Sketching - taking the idea to sketch, to pattern to garment and yes, you can do that. It's not that hard. There are a lot of steps, but this is the final part of the whole package of creating something especially for yourself.
You know all those pictures on Pinterest or pinned in your studio or on your bathroom mirror?...those ones you know you would look smashing in if...1.) you could find the right pattern, 2.) you might be able to find it in RTW, but to fit you would be a problem or 3.) you've always wanted to create a look or certain collar or fabulous sleeve or some other detail and never knew how. Here's how to do that.
This does require that you have your core pattern up and running. That's what the whole pattern will be based on and it is what makes all this work so well. Whereas commercial pattern makers and designers have to go through 5 to 8 iterations to get it right, with your core pattern, we already know it works, and what we're doing is copying that to make the style you want.
If you already have only one of the above, then you have the opportunity here to bring your toolbox up to date by acquiring the only what you need at a discounted price. The Sketching Resource is the only one that's new that no one has before this month.
At the same time if you want the whole kit and caboodle, it's at an even greater discount than normal. Here's everything with the whole kit and caboodle at the bottom!
Enjoy!
Elements & Principles of Design with Color Primer - This is what art and design students learn in art school. The only difference between them and you is that they have the time to play around with them. But we can do the same, albeit a little less time.
Fitting with Proportion and Figure-Flattering Tools
(This one comes in two parts)
Sketching - From Idea to Garment
The Design Toolbox - All Three Resources above in one download at a terrific price.
Once this special is over, the Sketching will go into both the Proportion and Elements & Principles (it's already in the Toolbox), at regular pricing.
On the Blog
From the time I started my design company, I was sketching designs for clients. It was the only way that ...
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A student asked a very interesting question, which I love to hear. This question is one that I've discussed here ...
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