Use Your Stash Challenge!

Please feel free to copy this button to your sidebar, or use it at the top of your stash busting posts. All I ask is that you link it back to this post so that others can read up on the rules and join in as well!

The main reasons that I decided to start up a Use Your Stash challenge are:

• You wanted to join in! Cutting into everything by yourself can be really hard. If we each hold each other accountable though, my hope is that we’ll get more projects done and more clutter out of our lives.
• I have everything to make exactly what I’m looking for. It’s stupid of me to spend more money on something mass-manufactured than use up the supplies I have sitting right here in front of me that are paid for.
• If I buy a garment instead of making it, it won’t fit the way I want it to, and it probably won’t last as long. No, I can’t afford to have someone else custom making something for me, and why would I?
• To get this pile of fabric out of house so that I can stop worry about it. Worrying about what I’ll use it for, how much I have of what, do I really “need” something when I see it in a store? I’ll know because I’ll be buying fabric because I NEED it, not just because I WANT it.

I just needed to get that out there. It helps to type things like that out, so that later when I’m staring at my stash thinking “but maybe I should save this piece…”, I’ll come back and read this and smack myself in the head and grab my scissors.

So, here are the rules. If you think of anything that I may have left out or have questions, please let me know in the comments! Also, please know that this challenge can be for fabric or yarn. If you have a different hobby that you think would fit in with these rules, let me know!

The Rules:

1.) You must begin the challenge by posting a photo, or photos, of EVERYTHING in your stash by July 16th. It is optional, but encouraged, that you also photograph trims, buttons, zippers, etc.

2.) You must weigh all the fabric in your stash (trims, buttons, etc. do not have to be included in the weight-in), and post the beginning fabric stash weight when you post the photo of what you have. This is your starting point. I figured this could make a stash busting exercise easier, since yardage could be hard to measure if you save a lot of scraps. I’ll show you how I did that in my post tomorrow.

3.) The Use Your Stash Challenge starts on July 16th 2012, and ends on August 13th 2012. You will have one month to use up as much weight in fabric as you can!

4.) There are no rules to what you can make. You can make miles and miles of bunting, or you can re-cover a couch if you like!

5.) Your project has to be totally completed before you can subtract the weight of the project from your total stash weight. None of this “I’ll hem it later” or “I’ll sew those buttons on Tuesday”. If it’s not finished, it can’t be weighed.

6.) Each time you are able to finish and weight a project, please post a photo of it, along with whatever information you have on the fabric and details such as what pattern you used. If you don’t have a blog to post photos on, you can email them to me: hello at reallyhandmade dot com, and I will post them here!

7.) You are allowed to “use” fabric by giving it to charity and throwing it away. I say you’re allowed to throw it away because if you’re like me, you’ve held onto teeny little scraps that will actually never be useful.

8.) Any new fabric you buy between July 16th and August 13th, has to have it’s weight ADDED to your stash weight.

9.) Whoever loses the highest percentage of weight in fabric, wins!

The prize, for the person who uses up the most of his or her stash in a month, will be a Fashionary sketch book, and several “secret” goodies, some of which I’ll tell you about as we play. I plan on adding in all kinds of things along the way, which makes it even more fun to win! I promise not to ship you a kitten though, even if it would be the cutest package ever.

Tomorrow I’ll share my stash with you, along with how to weigh it out. Eeek!