I read a lot of sewing blogs, and one thing I’ve noticed is that during the lockdown, sewists have been working hard to reduce their fabric stashes.

A fabric stash isn’t like an overstock of mugs in your cupboard or too many towels in your linen closet. Those things are easy to get rid of and easily replaced. Fabric is not as easy to replace, and it costs a lot more money to do so.

Sewists who primarily sew clothes usually have pieces of 2-6 yards in their fabric stash. With quality fabric now costing as much as $15-25 a yard, we’re talking quite an investment. So it’s in a sewist’s best interest to make something from their stash rather than let it just sit there and rot (many fabrics fade and even rot over time).

Some sewists keep a running total of how many yards they’ve bought and how many they’ve used each year. This year the total bought is usually lower because many fabric merchants have been shut down or slowed down by the Covid lockdown. So some sewists’ outgo has exceeded purchases by quite a bit. In fact, many are using up 10-20 yards a month. Thus they are steadily reducing their fabric stashes and regaining space in the process.

Food, supply and fabric stashes are probably the only ones I encourage. Everything else should be reduced down to just what you need if you want to enjoy having an uncluttered home.