Stash Interview ~ Hillary Lang from Wee Wonderfuls
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We asked Hillary Lang from Wee Wonderfuls all about her fabric stash. We’re big fans of her blog and shop, and we know she has a wonderful collection of fabrics. After you read the interview, check out the post Hillary wrote in September about her latest fabric sort; she talks more about all of the pictures you see here today. Don’t forget to play along with your own stash interview!
SMS: First of all, what do you usually sew? |
SMS: Do you buy on impulse or do you go out looking for something you need?
Hillary: Well I always need it.
Decor weight & Japanese prints
SMS: Are you a pre-washer? If you are, do you wash your fabric before you need it, or only when you’re ready to use it?
Hillary: Nope, never. Even though I should have learned my lesson when a predominantly red quilt I made for my mother ran all over itself. I still am too impatient to deal with washing and ironing. I like living on the edge.
SMS: How do you sort it? (color, print size, collection, etc.)
Hillary: I am newly sorted by color and I love it! I have two sizes on my shelves, sort of breaks down to less than a yard and more than a yard, and then I have tiny shelves for my favorite scraps.
Scraps
SMS: How do you store your fabric?
Hillary: Bookshelves with narrow shelves. They seem to stay put as long as they’re not piled too high.
SMS: What tips do you have for building up a well-rounded stash?
Hillary: Buy the “boring stuff”. If you’re only working with wow fabrics you’ll soon find you have nowhere to go. Buy stuff that reads as solids or that has colored backgrounds. I have way to many novelty prints on white backgrounds.
Wool felt & solids
SMS: When do you say enough is enough?
Hillary: I’ll let you know when I figure that out.
Medium & large!
SMS: What are some of your favorite stash-busting projects?
Hillary: Pants for the kids. Specially helps with those vintage sheets I can’t stop buying.
SMS: What’s your definition of the perfect stash?
Hillary: I wish I knew. I have a ton of fabric and still have the hardest time pulling things together for the perfect mix. I’d say maybe less choices and more yardage. I have the opposite and it can be very frustrating.
Hillary’s current favorite stash prints.
Thanks, Hillary!
71 Responses to “Stash Interview ~ Hillary Lang from Wee Wonderfuls”
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Wow what a great stash you have here!! Wish I had this much fabric, though I guess my pocketbook is glad I don’t!!
Thanks for sharing!!
Rachel
ooh, I’m envious! I too am a fabric hoarder, and I try to keep it organized by color. I hear her complaint about not being able to pull together the look I want. too many choices, maybe?
There is something so magical about staring at gorgeous piles of fabric. It is like the project possibilities are endless. I also like looking at button collections and walls of yarn, but I’m crazy like that.
These stash interviews and the pictures on Flicker are great…It is inspiring me to do some organizing!
That’s a really great interview! I love seeing others stashes and how they go about organizing them.
When I look at this stash, I am so jealous! I am a newbie sewer and a VERY frugal shopper. I only buy what I need most of the time and only just enough for the current project. That means that I have little to no stash. But I sure would love one!
I love hearing the interview and seeing her stash. Thanks for sharing.
wow!
I do not have much of a stash, but I am now inspired!
My fabric stash is scattered! I’m looking for good ways to easily store it so I can dig through
and actually find things!
I have yardage and remnants, projects and things wishing to be projects.
Hope I can get some kind of storage worked out!
Think I may actually have just turned green with envy – I’m away to check in a mirror!
What a great stash! I wish mine was so well organized!
Wow! I just want to reach through and touch it.
Wow! I can see what Hilary means by having too many choices. I love her stash – thanks for the interview!
Love that last picture of your favorite stash fabrics. Yellows and reds and black are lovely together!
OMG that stash is to die for! I just wish I had a quarter of that. I love the shelving of fabrics so you can see all the color and print choices.
WOW! I wish my stash was like that. I just started a couple years ago, so with five kids I am very limited as to what I buy(projects in mind purchases only).
I am completely jealous.
That is an impressive stash.
Beautiful, you have your own boutique right inside you house!
i love your stash and am very envious of your storage!
I like how you can see all your fabric, mine is all in drawers. I think seeing it out is inspiring. Thanks for sharing!
I love Wee Wonderfuls. It was the first crafting blog I ever read. I’ve bought several of Hillary’s patterns and they are very well written and easy to follow. Her dolls have become a Christmas tradition for my youngest niece. So nice to read her interview here.
Thank you Hillary for the insight into your stash and your collecting method. I too divide my collection by color and size. It becomes real obvious what colors are in great supply!!! I prewash and iron (no starch or sizing until it is used) then fold. I also have a box of misc scrap pieces for when I have the urge to begin a project, but should not. These pieces I cut to several standard sizes: 2.5″, 5″, 2.5″ strips, etc. These are in a small box–not rumpled in a basket…ready when I need some rotary exercise!!!!
Wow! It is great to see others that have fabric addiction too! Great organization. That is something that I need to work on
I haven’t yet told my husband that my goal this spring is to build a good stash. Let’s keep that secret amongst ourselves.
Such a pretty pretty stash!!
Drool.
Very interesting stuff here, learning so much so far this month. Thank you.
Great interview! It’s wonderful (excuse the pun
) reading about the sewing lives of others. Very envious of that well-organised stash!!
Great stash. I don’t think I’d ever leave the craft room if I had that many fabric choices right at my fingertips!
Wee Wonderfuls has been a favorite for a long time, so as soon as I saw this I got excited. Amazing, what a fantastic stash! I can’t even imagine!
I love seeing stacks and stacks of fabric! I like Hillary’s living-on-the-edge attitude about not pre-washing.
Maybe I need a little more adventure in my life.
Thanks for sharing your stash. You’ve given me some ideas for storing my stash.
Great Fabric Stash – I have mine in plastic drawers by color – I would love to have it on bookcases I think that it would be easier to pull from instead of going through drawers.
ooh what an amazing stash! thanks for this, it was a really interesting interview. Now I know I don’t need to prewash my fabrics too :p
I’m starting to learn how important solids and not busy prints are. soooo necessary and i feel like i have none!
Oh man. What fun fabrics!
Fabulous interview…I love reading her blog. My fabric stash is still tiny. Everything is shoved into two plastic totes.
Man, that’s one heck of a stash!
I love the tiny shelves for scraps — what a great idea.
I’m suffering from terrible stash envy!
lovely fabrics and so neat and tidy, I could spend a whole week with your stash and not get bored
What a huge stash! Love looking at all those fabrics.
sigh…..ahhh…. i can only dream. still having to sneak fabric in the house.
I’m loving your stash here! I’m glad to see that you agree that it’s great to have solids and small prints that appear as solids in your stash – that was what I mentioned in my tips for a great stash… all too often I have to cool, fun prints but nothing to coordinate with them! Great tips here … I’m still working on folding my stash…
Wow, I can only dream of such a stash! I’m trying to work through mine so clear up space! Backwards I know..
It’s a little bit weird, I think, how much joy I get out of looking at my cupboard of fabric . .but seeing everyone else’s comments, maybe not so weird! love hillary’s stuff – thanks for featuring her.
Wow, I am drooling–not just over the gorgeous fabric, but over the organization, as well!
so glad to see someone else who is too impatient to wash and iron.
i am in awe of everything she does.
Well, one thing for sure is that I have been motivated to clean up my stash after seeing all these organized pictures and the ones on Flickr!!
I love how they are organized! I wish I had shelving so that I could organize my craft and fabric supplies!
love hillary and her fabric stash! thanks for the insight.
Cute interview! I love her answers.
Thank you for a great post. It’s always so much fun to read about how others manage their fabric addictions!
Great advice on buying the ‘boring’ fabrics. They are so necessary to create balance in projects.
I love looking at other’s stashes. I’m still fairly new to it all so I have a small stash. I love looking at others to see what fabric I hvave that they do too, and what of their’s I want to find! And this is a great one!
So good to see other peoples’ stashes and that they have the same ‘control issues’ as I do… ‘controlling’ the urge to buy and then ‘controlling’ what to do with it all when you give in to that buying urge! Thanks for sharing, Hillary.
Great interview and great stash!
I seriously have to face my irrational dislike of purchasing solids. They really round out your stash.
Love, love your stash! Fabric is my vice in life, well besides chocolate! It makes me want to organize better.
this stash is amazing. I am having such a fun time building mine, I love going through it and folding it tidily so i can see all the luscious colours!!
let me wipe the drool off my chin to say…..yowza.
She clearly has too much fabric. I’d be glad to take them off her hands.
I’m so glad to know that someone so talented doesn’t pre-wash her fabrics. Now I can be guilt free that I don’t always.
oh, to have a stash like that…
After reading this I don’t feel like such a dummy for washing an unfinished quilt top bought at a yard sale and having the reds bleed all over. Now I have to decide whether to just leave it and finish it as is or unsew and replace the “pink” whites.
Wow! I’ve just begun sewing so my stash is very very minimal. I try not to go crazy spending money on fabric that I never know if I’ll use. I think I may sit her and drool over her stash for a while though.
Oh and I’d like to second JenniMac in saying that I’d be very willing to take some of that fabric off of her hands.
Very good observations. Maybe adding some pictures will make the blog post more interesting.