Inspiration overload

It's official.  My brain is going to pop!

 

There are so many amazing sewy creations out there in blogland - I find myself staying up until the early hours reading post after post and getting so many ideas that I can't get to sleep!  Maybe taking my Kindle to bed with me is a bad idea.

It got to the point when I didn't think I could actually make anything because I just had too many projects whizzing round my mind, but I have managed to focus and although my hexie obsession is on the wane this week (because I think I overdid it a bit!) my passion for mini quilts and rainbow colours is still going strong and the children (mostly Dot) and I also made Aunty Mo a hexagon bag and card for her 80th birthday.

These are some more of the blogs I have been reading: the appropriately named My Quilt Infatuation (in the school holidays she makes a quilt a week and doesn't start a new project until that one is completely finished, bound and labelled - no startitis here), Simplify (and I have bought her most recent book and some pdf patterns too - they are lovely) and Mama Love Quilts (her colour wheel mini quilt is gorgeous).

I've been reading through lots of old posts on these blogs and a common theme seems to be fabric storage which has left me unsettled about the fabrics I have and the way they are sorted.

I have a lot of fabric.  At the moment it is sorted in (quite large) plastic boxes by colour and then there is a box for novelty fabric (and various other boxes too if I'm honest).

A lot of the fabrics were bought years ago when I made appliqued fleece blankets, so I have the perfect colour and pattern for a lion's mane or a sheep's fleece for example, but my tastes have moved on.  Then I had a phase of making wallets with novelty fabrics - but again, I have moved on. 

All these no longer loved fabrics were getting me down and making me feel guilty so on Saturday I had a massive colour by colour sort out and pulled out all the pieces that I could no longer see myself using.  It was very therapeutic - but the box of cast offs was pretty large. So I offered them to my sewing friends who chose the pieces they would like, then I plan to show two other friends as I think they would like some too - but what should I do with the rest of it?  My ultimate plan is to donate some to the children's school textiles department but do you have any suggestions first?

And how do you store your fabric?  My sewing room is out in the garage but having read all those inspirational blog posts about fancy storage, I would love to have the fabric stacked by colour on my shelves in the house (that's not going to happen though!) but maybe instead of having them stuffed in boxes I should iron and fold them and have the boxes facing outwards on the shelves so I can see the fabrics and be inspired.

Here's a final photo of a project I stitched before Christmas

Miss Maggie Rabbit from the design by Posie gets Cozy - she was fun to make :o)