organizing fabric into a sewing queue

The main reason that I set a goal to sew 12 items of clothing this year was because in 2012, I made a grand total of 0 items for myself. I sewed several things for family members and gifts. But for myself, ZERO. The only things made for myself were out of yarn. Knitting definitely was the winner last year.

Sadly, sewing clothes wasn't neglected just in 2012. In 2011, I made a whopping 2 items for myself. 2010 was even worse with another grand total of 0 items. Any sewing was pretty much only for my kids, home decor or gifts.

Sigh. It's kind of sad to actually see it typed out. I adore sewing and especially love to make clothing. But I have a few reasons the last few years were so spotty. In 2010 we sold our home in order to build a new home and moved into a rental. I packed up all my apparel fabric and put it into storage. Then we moved again that year to a different rental which made the year a bit crazy. During 2011 we built our home, in large part ourselves (never doing that again!). At the end of 2011 we moved into our not-quite-finished home. And then spent much of any free time painting walls, painting trim, organizing closets and cabinets, getting settled in, etc. 

Our home still isn't 100% finished and it's FAR from being decorated but I've decided that I have to return to sewing. I missed it much too much the last few years.

In order to tackle this goal, I've been going through my clothing fabric and pairing fabric with patterns. Just like the queue feature for knitters/crocheters/spinners at www.Ravelry.com. It's the one thing I wish www.PatternReview.com had that it doesn't. I probably won't knit or sew things in the order I listed them in a my knitting or sewing queue. I just like to see what I have and know it has a potential use and then start checking them off the list.

I'm sure some of you must do this already because it seems like such a great idea to me now. But in the past when I've purchased fabric and patterns, I have stored them separately and inevitably (unless I actually sewed it immediately, ha!) I couldn't remember what fabric I intended for what pattern.

I went through my stash of apparel fabric and pulled out every usable piece. For now I'm just focusing on sewing for myself and so I left fabric I'd use for my children or husband in the bins. My fabric is folded in 1/4 yard increments so it wasn't hard to count through the layers and determine yardage and then pair fabric with a pattern. Then, I found patterns that would work for the fabric and I'm going to store it right with the fabric, along with notes from PatternReview that will help me when I finally sew it. I might even get around to putting the notions needed with the fabric eventually.

It took me quite a while to go through everything. When I finished I realized I had 40 potential things I can sew this year. 40! Who knew there was that much great fabric hiding in my bins, most purchased several years ago, before we sold and built a house. Thank goodness I had my trusty and furry assistant, Willow, to help me get it all organized!