Why do we stash?

Here is today’s finished quilt. I almost finished a second one. Just a couple of hours more and it will be done. As you may have noticed, I’m no longer counting down toward time off. I had to make a financial decision that requires me to keep working.

I’ve been planning out my organizing once again. It seems all the work I did last January has completely come undone. I always try to find what is not working then find a solution. Obviously what I did back in January isn’t working so now it’s up to me to find another way to organize.

I started my organizing by trying to clean up my computer. The computer seems to be one of my most neglected areas of clutter. I have a ton of things on my computer that would be best moved to cds. I had a new cd drive put into my computer just so I could backup data. It’s not working or maybe I just need to learn the right way to use it. When I get the computer cleaned up it should start moving a little faster.

I saw on TV (in a news report last night) that people are saving tons of emails and book marking sites that they never get around to reading because there is too much information. Wow! I think I said the same thing several weeks ago. No longer are people vegetating in front of a TV, now days they are vegetating in front of a computer screen.

A few years ago I moved my tv to the farthest room away from my quilting studio. I had to break myself from spending so much time watching it. It was really hard to do.

I think it’s time for me to break myself from spending so much time on the computer. The internet is like one gigantic shopping mall with constant advertisements. No, not the pop up type; I mean the telling of gidgets and gadgets other people have bought and love. Think about it…. How many websites or blogs have you visited where someone tells about a new quilting gidget or gadget then thought to yourself…. I want one of those! Then you buy it. The internet is like spending hours and hours day after day in a shopping mall trying to keep up with the Jones’s.

Then there is the visiting of blogs where people show their fabric stashes. Some are all sorted by size and color and stacked neatly in cabinets. Some studios are completely disorganized and filled with tons and tons of fabric. Some quilters take over their whole house with fabrics and quilting gadgets. Some blogs tell of visiting fabric stores and bringing home new purchases to store away in an already filled sewing room. Why do we buy and keep so much of it?

Could it possibly be we believe the world will suffer some sort major disaster and fabric will no longer be made? Could it be we believe another depression is about to hit us or we will suffer some type of loss of our income and we must stockpile quilting stuff just in case? Do we believe the thrift stores will go out of business too so that we couldn’t use old clothing for quilts if we could no longer buy fabric by the yard? Do we believe the library will cease to exist and we couldn’t check out books so we buy tons of quilting books to put into our stash? Just what has all quilters believing the larger our stash the better quilter we are?

Do you think the quilters of yesteryear had hugh fabric and gadget stashes? Did their quilting stuff take over room after room? Yet there were some really beautiful quilts still around from back then. What did they do that modern quilts are not doing? Think about it for awhile. I will too.

Buying fabrics and quilting gadgets can really ruin a budget. I know; I’ve spent hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on quilting stuff. Do I use everything? No way, there are not enough hours in the day to get around to using everything I have stored away gathering dust. Could I have used some of that money for other things? Absolutely! If I had saved my money instead of buying more dust catchers or fabric stash for the studio I probably would have had the money to fix up this house already.

Now that I’ve given you some things to think about; I’m headed to the studio. I’m going to do some more thinking about this too.