The fabric collection spreadsheet

Shannon of Hungry Zombie Couture is an Organizational Goddess.  Seriously!  Her last couple of blog posts have been about her fabric closet, how she organized & folded it and how she keeps track of her fabric.  Since I'm getting ready to move my fabric from the bins to fabric shelves, these posts really caught my eye.


After moving all of this fabric from the old apartment to the new townhouse, I've decided that somewhere there should be some kind of list of exactly what I own.  I have a good idea in my head but I can tell you that I definitely found pieces that I'd forgotten about as I packed up the collection.  So instead of laying out and cutting my gray pieces last night, I embarked upon making my own fabric excel spreadsheet.

I decided to start with the pieces that are laying around.  I can tell you that this is a very involved process and I applaud anyone who has maintained this type of database.  I've entered exactly 17 pieces of fabric and I'm in awe of how much work this is.  I think I'm gonna enter a few of the fabric bins before they are opened and placed on the shelves because can I say it again, this is ALOT of work!  *LOL*


However, I've learned a few things:
1.  Did you know that both Fabric Mart and fabric.com keep a listing of all your fabric purchases.  
Now this can be a good and a bad thing.  Good because I was able to find a piece of fabric on Fabric Mart's site that I purchased in 2005 enabling me to get most of the specifics onto the spreadsheet.  However, they have every purchase I've made since 2005...people that's 7 years of fabric buying which is definitely the bad side.


2.  Even the coupon codes are listed on both sites.
So you not only know how much the yardage originally was but what discount you received.


3.  Thank goodness that I've been tagging my fabric as it's shown up.  It will make putting most of the entries in very easy...time-consuming but easy.


I've only got 17 pieces entered but I want to keep this up because it's not only informative but it will be very helpful.  It's just a very large task entering all of the fabric I have...guess I'll just have to take it one piece at a time.


There was a question on my "Thanks" post from Szmusil...
"Regarding wool...Once your garments are sewn, how do you care for them?  Do you dry clean?  Hand wash?  Some other method?"


Szmusil - let me tell you first that I have ALOT of clothes.  For the last few years on average I've made at least one garment a week.  So most of my clothing gets one or two wearings a season.  Pants get a little more wear but I'm trying to change that by wearing more dresses/skirts or my jeans to work and changing into a dress or a skirt. Okay so that was a huge aside but I think it's important to understand why I chose the method of cleaning that I have.  I dry clean my wool garments and not very often because I don't wear them repeatedly.  I just like how they are cleaned and how they come back pressed.  I know that drycleaning is not everyone's preferred method of cleaning but it works for me.


I think I'll get to the actual business of sewing tonight so more about the new pieces soon...


...as always, more later!

A Little Pattern Organization

As you know I've made over 40 variations of my TNT dress pattern.  I've done this by copying the master pattern pieces and then cutting up the copies to achieve the look I wanted.  Then when I was finished with the pieces I would stuff them all back into the original pattern's file folder:

But lately this has really started to get on my nerves, looking through all of those pieces and trying to remember which pieces went with which dress.  So I got the bright idea to make separate folders for each version of the dress as I pulled the pattern pieces out and used them.  I now have 4 folders for four different versions of my TNT dress pattern.

However, today when I went to look for a folder, I found that my description wasn't adequate enough for me to remember which v-neck version of the dress I've made.  So I went to my flickr account and printed out pictures of the dresses and taped them inside the folder.

I had already placed a copy of the Macy's ad

inside the pattern pieces for the Macy Dress.

Now when I need to make another one of my TNT dress variations, I can easily flip open the folder and see not only the pattern pieces but a picture of the completed dress.

And yes, I'm sewing...even though the super has cleaned out all of the parking lots he still hasn't managed to snow blow out all the sidewalks yet...so I'm stuck in the house!  'Cause there was no leaving the state of NJ this morning since all bus service was suspended.  Hopefully everything will be back up and running this evening.

As an aside, I was reading an article in the January 2011 issue of Bazaar, "The Untold Jackie O" by John Loring.  He wrote a book with the same title that was recently published and the article is an excerpt from his book.  What struck me was when he talked about the designers that Jackie loved to wear..."obsessed" was the word he used to describe how she felt about Carolina Herrara (and I can understand since she is one of my favorites too!) and that she was wearing a dress designed by Sybil Connolly (another one of my favorites!) for her official White House Portrait.

courtesy of  The Huffington Post

I haven't decided whether or not I'm going to read the book yet but I was just tickled to learn that fact!

I'm headed back to my sewing machine.  I will have pictures of the finished dress soon.

...more later!