My First Piece of Fabric

My friend Carolyn posted a blog that really inspired me to think about something that I have a tendency to do, and that is collect fabric, or fabric stashing.

I have enough fabric and patterns in the house that if I didn't buy anything but thread and buttons for the next year, I could probably happily sew at least three garments a month.

Yet I still buy more fabric. I just love it! The look, the feel, the vibrant colors. I can't leave it alone. I love the planning of projects...the imagining of what the fabric could be.

But really, I have a relatively small stash. There are a lot of sewers that have a significantly larger fabric collection than me. Also, I tend to purchase fabric that can be made into "everyday" clothing, and don't buy very high-end fabrics (well, there is that one piece of Liberty that I have hidden away...) because my sewing skills just aren't at the level yet that I can justify spending that much. For the most part, I spend $5.00 or less per yard, $10.00 is my self-imposed limit for something that I really want. I figure, once I get past $10.00 a yard, I am getting into the range of what I could purchase something for in the store.

Because of this, I tend to think of myself as a "stasher" and not a collecter. If I had more high-end fabric, or if it lived in the stash for longer periods of time, perhaps I would be a true collector. But I do understand collecting. I could easily become a collector. In fact, there may be a little bit of latent collector in me.

I "collected" my first piece of fabric long before I ever had my first sewing machine.

When I was in graduate school, all of my research was done in Syria, Turkey, Egypt, and Morocco...all places that produce wonderful textiles. Each season, I would find myself in the fabric shops and carpet shops wondering just what in the world I would do with such wonderful things.

One year, I finally gave in. I was in Damascus for some R&R after a hot, dusty, and beige season at an archaeological site in northeastern Syria. After three months of beige grass, beige dust, beige dirt, and wearing beige clothes it was overwhelming to see the colors and vibrancy of the wares in the shops of the Souk Hammdiyeh.

I was relating how overwhelming it was to my friend Sultan, who owned one of these vibrant, overcrowded shops, as I sat drinking tea on the tiny balcony overlooking the shopping street below. Sultan, ever the salesman, offered his help by pulling from a cabinet bolt after bolt of hand-loomed silk brocade...two-color, three-color, five-color, seven-color....with abstract designs, florals, turquiose with peacocks, oh, and here is Saladin on his way to Jerusalem....

I couldn't help myself. I finally asked...how much? $50.00...per meter. How much would I neeed? What did I want to make? Could I ever bring myself to cut into it? I finally gave in and purchased two meters.

That fabric stayed with me for many years. I carried it from one grim graduate student apartment to another. Ocassionally I would open the package and roll out the two meters and admire it..marvel at how if I looked at it this way it was gold, but if I looked at it this way it was red. Then I would roll it back up and put it away, knowing that I did not have the skill to do anything with it.

But I finally got tired of just looking at the fabric, year after year, and decided to do something about it. I was living in Champaign, Illinois at the time and found a woman there who made custom wedding dresses. I assumed that someone with the skill to make wedding dresses would know what to do with the silk.

I took the silk to her, and we talked about what could be done with it. We settled on a knee-length sheath, which she lined with a decadent gold silk that was pretty enough to be on the outside of a dress.

Here is the dress at New Years Eve two years ago:


So, I can understand the collector. I understand because I collected my first piece of fabric before I had even an inkling about what to do with it. It was another eight years after that dress was made before I even embarked on sewing a garment for myself. Sure, I sewed curtains and slipcovers...but never working with anything so decadent as $50.00 a meter silk. And it never crossed my mind that I might be able to take those skills at sewing curtains and pillows and slipcovers and actually apply that to making clothing for myself.

But now I am building skills every day, and as I learn more about how to fit my body properly, and finish garments more professionally, perhaps one day soon I can justify working with more high-end farics, and then...I will be a collector.