Psychology of the Stash

Recently Luana Rubin, of the great company eQuilter.com (if you love fabric you need to check out this site!) wrote this piece in her newsletter. She kindly gave permission for me to republish it here.

I think she was channelling me, because truly, truly, I could've written this. I think any of us who collect fabric could have.

Psychology of The Stash

"A Quilter's Stash is a thing of Beauty...... or Guilt....or endless Joy contemplating the endless possibilities. As new quilters, we work on Stash Building. As long-time quilters, some talk about Stash Busting. But what about the place in between? Last week I had 2 walls of shelves built into my house - one of them in my studio. As I moved books and fabrics and embellishments and UFO's around, piling up first, then redistributing on freshly laid shelving, it felt like cleaning out my refrigerator after a visit to my local gourmet health food store.

And then I realized that I will forever be updating my Stash - forever Stash Building, editing and sharing, and forever "spending" my Stash on new projects, gifts, fabric purges and artful experiments. Acquiring, creating, using and sharing from my wealth of fabrics and paint and threads and embellishments. I am in the Stash Abundance stage of Life. Let me make one thing clear here - I am not referring to the fabric here in the eQuilter warehouse. Yes technically it belongs to me until we ship it out - but in my mind our giant eQuilter Stash belongs to all of you! If she who dies with the most fabric wins..... I don't want to win that contest!

No, I am talking about my own personal stash that is not even in my studio above the eQuilter warehouse. I am talking about my domestic stash in my basement studio at home. All the textiles I have collected when living and traveling in Asia. My grandmothers' needlework and quilt tops. Secondhand clothes I have rescued from the trash because I thought it would make a good... *something*... some day. Satin and organza ribbons saved from gifts. Fabric dyeing experiments. Hand painted panels from African, Indonesia and Australia. Embroidered hankies from flea markets and silk scarves from my mom's toy chest. I walk into my studio like a cook walks into a pantry, and I start pulling out pieces that make me feel happy or somehow express whatever emotion I am feeling when I enter my creative space. I pile them up, spread them out, rearrange and then drip embellishments on top. If it looks like something I want to sew together, I start thinking about a design. But I always look at that pile and think..."If only I had - - - - it would make this composition just *perfect* !" (then I go shopping on the eQuilter website!)

My Stash is a work in progress... with no beginning and no end. It is the Milky Way. It is the New York City Library. It is the Smithsonian and the Louvre. It is looking out the window at the snowy peaks as I fly over the RockyMountains. It is a collection of best-loved Poems. It is Martha's Spice Pantry. It holds memories. It holds stories that are not yet written. It is a place of infinite potential. It is all the things in my heart that have not yet been spoken....What's in your Stash?"

So what do you think? What does your stash mean to you?