You can read that statement as if I were in a fabric-aholic meeting (if there was such a thing!) or as a confession, even though I'm not Catholic. Between 1999 and 2003 I had what I would consider to be an addiction to online fabric buying. Boxes from fabric.com arrived almost monthly, sometimes more often. Fabric.com has a record of my orders and apparently October 2002 was a good month for them as I placed 6 orders. Oh my. I started buying from them when they were Phoenix Textiles and I was enticed by their super cheap fabrics to practice my sewing. They were $1.99 or maybe even $.99. If I remember correctly, nothing was over $4/yard (and it was actually 39 inches) in those early years. According to my account at fabric.com, my first order was in September 1999 but it's so old they don't list what I bought. The order number then was only 4 digits - they're up to 7 digits now. I do remember that the fabric I received was nice, too nice I thought, for practice sewing. I bought more. And more. And more. I have sewn some of it and some of it has left the house in one way or another through trades with sewing friends or gifted to my sister. Most of it is stored away in plastic bins along with fabric from EmmaOneSock, Denver Fabrics, Textile Fabrics, Gorgeous Fabrics, Fabric Club, and a few more. Not to mention fabric bought in "brick and mortar" stores. And then there's the travel fabric. Oh my.
I love fabric. I love the texture, the color, even the smell. I enjoy imagining what I would do with the fabric. The problem is that lately I've only done the dreaming part. Knowing that I possess more fabric than I can possibly sew, I have curtailed my fabric shopping to almost nothing over the last few years. I allowed myself to buy fabric on vacations as a sort of souvenir, and of course I couldn't pass up fabric shopping in New York City. Lately I've been making home dec fabric purchases since we need curtains and pillows and such for the rooms that we've redone. And one of those rooms, my sewing room #2, as I call it, is close to finished. All that remains is to finish moving stuff back in, organize...and make some window treatments, pillows, and bedding with the fabric I bought.
I guess buying the home dec fabric was like an alcoholic taking a sip after years of sobriety. I fell off the wagon. The cat is out of the bag. I stopped ignoring the emails from fabric.com.
So 11 years after my first fabric.com purchase, I've again experienced the little flutter of happiness upon receiving a big box of fabric.
Well, not much fabric actually. The pillows required the box to be large. The chenille and cording is for a pillow. The rocket fabric is for me, for a kitchy shirt to wear when I work on satellite launches.
But it is a slippery slope. After making that online purchase I have "sinned" again. I happened to be at Joann's to buy a curtain rod and I couldn't resist two pieces of sale fabric. And I've been looking at other online fabric sites and dreaming about the fabric and what I can make with it. Hopefully I will find the restraint because I already have a lot of wonderful fabric that should be used and not packed away in plastic bins.
But I really did enjoy the thrill of new fabric!
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