Personal Stash Bust/Stash Diet Pledge

If you're on Instagram and following me, you may have noticed the photo I posted as part of House of Pinheiro's Sew Photo Hop on Sunday. Based on Rachel's prompt, I posted a photo of my fabric stash. My excessively large fabric and increasingly disorganized stash.

Posting my photo and reading everyone's comments marveling at how out of control my stash has gotten, combined with a fortuitously-timed viewing of "The True Cost" had led me to determine that it's time for a stash diet.

While I don't buy very much, if any, "fast fashion," I am guilty of over-zealously buying fabric with no particular project in mind. Intellectually I know my stash is too big and that my fabric spending is a bit haphazard, but I guess it took this confluence of red flags to bring me to my senses.

To be fair, a large part (maybe over half) of my stash is hand-made (hand stamped batik, hand woven ikat) fabric I bought when I lived in Indonesia. As our time there wrapped up, I worried I would never really have a chance to return to Indonesia to get more, so I went a bit overboard. I also have a decent amount of both woven and knits that I commandeered from my mother's vintage stash.

But still, too much fabric, so I, Meg, solemnly swear to not buy any new fabric in the next 6 months (we'll see how the pledge goes and then maybe I'll extend it to a year?).

A few caveats... let's be realistic: this doesn't include fabric I receive as a gift or fabric purchased with a gift certificate. Also, if I travel during that time period, I am allowed to buy 2 lengths of fabric per trip, ideally with a specific project in mind. If I am sewing something for someone else and need to buy fabric for that specific purpose, that's fine, too.

Have you ever made any stash-busting promises with yourself? Were you successful?

In the meantime, I'll be over here, unsubscribing myself from fabric store mailing lists!