At the beginning of 2022 I decided that I would try to not buy fabric for a full year. The last purchase I made was on 1 Jan 2022 (a sale purchase – I made the decision to not buy a few days into 2022, so my year wouldn’t quite run for the full calendar).
Why?
Since starting sewing I’ve amassed a large stash. Some of it is fabric I bought before I understood what fabrics I liked; a lot of this has either been sold on or designated toile fabric. Some of it is fabric bought for a very specific purpose at a point in time, but which hasn’t been made up yet (eg coating fabrics). Some of it was limited edition fabric, which I knew I couldn’t get down the line. A lot of it, however, was from FOMO purchasing.
If you’re asking what FOMO purchasing is, it’s a term I use for how the way the sewing community has evolved has led to increased financial consumption for Fear Of Missing Out. That can be fabric, patterns, haberdashery – anything. And it can be driven by different things. Examples are: limited edition runs, so you have to purchase within a certain window or it’s never available again; deadstock, where there is only ever a limited quantity of left over stock from a designer or manufacturer, so once it’s gone it’s gone; increasing use of ‘drops’ with products made available at a set time on a set schedule (eg weekly, biweekly, or irregularly but with marketing in the lead up) to drive up buzz and encourage quick sales; or more traditional tools like discounts or sale prices over a date range.
I used to subscribe to a lot of fabric shops and follow them all on instagram. I got into the habit of checking their drops as soon as they launched, and spurred on by unknown stock levels, promises of limited quantity and once it’s gone it’s gone, I would panic buy. Sometimes that meant buying more yardage to be on the safe side and because I didn’t know how I’d use it, but I knew I wanted it; and sometimes it meant purchasing items that, when they arrived, I later regretted. Of course, the facts of buying fabric by the yardage mean it isn’t returnable as it’s cut to order.
What rules did you set yourself?
The main rule was that I couldn’t buy main fabric for a garment for myself. I could buy things like interfacing, provided I needed it (i.e. I had run out or it was a specific kind for a project); I could buy a fabric if it had a technical purpose (eg toiling something that needed a specific kind of fabric and my stash of cotton poplin/lawn/poly/viscose wouldn’t do); and I could buy fabric for making things for others. Towards the end of the year I also allowed myself to buy a small amount of fabric for quilting, as I made my first quilt this year and really enjoyed it. So I now have a small stash of quilting fabric in my favoured colours, so that I can work as and when I want to.
This means I technically did buy fabric this year (in the strictest sense) but the key was to address the habits I had formed about buying fabric for myself, so for the purposes of this challenge I didn’t count those as purchases.
What made you break your challenge?
The reason I didn’t complete a full year was solely that Rainbow Fabrics secured wool suiting yardage at great prices. I have to wear suits for work and I have been wanting to get into making my own tailored suits for a while, as the plus size RTW market is extremely limited (and even moreso post-Covid as RTW plus size formal office wear has drastically reduced). I’d bought some in 2021 and had learned what prices to expect, and the availability of yardage. To put it bluntly: I need more yardage than is often available in deadstock or remnants for a full suit due to my measurements, and buying wool suiting yardage at RRP is *very* expensive. It’s very good to even get deadstock 100% wool suiting at £20pm, and Rainbow Fabrics had it for £10pm and discount codes. Frankly, it was far too good a deal to pass up. It was a no brainer, and I genuinely would have been annoyed at myself if I had waited and missed out, because it’s that rare an opportunity.
Since breaking my ban, I have bought some other fabric. I had a little burst where I got ‘up to date’ with all the fabric shops, as they had entirely new stock given it had been 10 months, but I haven’t gone back into old habits. I do get an urge when I see that something is going to be discontinued or is reduced in a sale, but I make myself reflect in a way that I didn’t used to, and I buy a fraction of what I would have before. I think very carefully about the fibre, colours, weights and intended uses of fabric now, and most of the time one of those factors means that I decide not to buy something.
Lessons learned
1) I have a very big stash. There is usually a suitable fabric in my stash, and I can use that fabric instead of buying. I enjoy shopping my stash!
It’s a seemingly simple lesson, but it’s true. If I browse a fabric shop and I see a nice jersey that could work for a t-shirt – I probably have something similar or something in my stash that I would be equally happy to use. A patterned woven? I’ve got plenty. Coatings? I have a few. The past year has been really good for reminding myself of what I have already bought, because the simple fact is that it’s hard to keep track when it’s in drawers and cupboards and not easily visible.
Towards the end of 2021 I started using an Airtable template by @jenbensews on instagram for tracking my stash and my projects. It’s worked very well for me because it’s got the level of detail that I like, and I can break down data from it. It doesn’t have my entire stash in it, but I’ve been putting in everything I’ve bought and everything I use as I use it, so it’s building up. Other options I recommend include an app called Stash Hub, which is by @blossomsandwich on instagram. Options like these mean you can search through your stash digitally to see what you have, how much of it you have, whether you’ve pre-washed it etc.
2) I now have an idea of how quickly I consume fabric.
For 2022 I also logged data on exactly how many metres I’d used on completed garments, WIPs, and on planned projects. This year my completed garments comes to 61.75m of fabric. Knowing that is very helpful, as it helps me limit what I buy so that my consumption is adjusted to my usage. I wanted to be more mindful about consumption in general, and sewing is one of those activities where you can feel like you’re being sustainable by making your own clothes, but actually you’re still driven by consumerism and fast fashion – just in a different way.
My goal in tracking what I make was in being more mindful overall. It has certainly made me think twice about consumption, but it’s also been very helpful in reflecting on things. For example, I log pattern notes in my Airtable, and I can track how many times I’ve made a garment using that pattern. I can see where my making is concentrated, and where there are gaps. I can also remind myself of items in my handmade wardrobe that I can’t immediately see in my physical wardrobe. Tracking my sewing practice has been incredibly motivational – I’ve loved seeing my stash go down, both in data and physically. 60m is a lot of space that’s freed up!
3) That I didn’t miss buying fabric, and I only felt regret at missing out on two fabrics during that 10 months.
I immediately unfollowed all the shops and unsubscribed from most newsletters, if not all. I let myself keep signed up to one or two for other things, like events, but I generally ignored the ‘new in’ sections. Very occasionally I did make myself look at new in knowing I wouldn’t let myself cave, just so that I began to experience looking but not buying.
I can honestly say that there were only two fabrics I was sad I missed out on; one was deadstock Dior toile de juoy and one was a Pigeon Wishes deadstock fabric. They were both very unique and they were instantly a ‘hell yes’ fabric. And that has made me think more about how I feel about fabric, and that I shouldn’t be buying anything that isn’t a ‘hell yes’. I shouldn’t buy something I like but isn’t ‘hell yes’. Even if it’s a bargain. I only want ‘hell yes’ in my life. There’s a saying amongst some of my sewing friends, which is ‘there will always be more beautiful fabric’. And there will. So it has to be pretty special to cross over.
It’s also made me think more about my stash, which has plenty of fabric that I don’t feel ‘hell yes’ about, especially stuff from the earlier days. And that’s made me decide to do a destash of sorts; I’ll probably sell some bits, but I will also take part in fabric swaps. Something I’ve learned is that it doesn’t make me happier to have fabric that I don’t love. It weighs me down.
4) I’ve reflected a lot this year on what is in my stash, including fibre contents. I’ve learned that there are some fibres I love, and others I hate, and I should categorically not buy those which I hate – even if they’re pretty.
The big one here is polyester. I’m not averse to synthetic fibres as such, but I have a lot of cheap poly in my stash. Being more reflective this year has meant that I’ve noticed how poly jersey often wears poorly over time, and how I hate the feeling of polyester clinging to my skin.
Another one is linen – I actually don’t dislike linen at all, but my issue with it is that this year I’ve realised that I don’t particularly like how linen wears on certain garments. I have a pair of trousers I made that I love, but which bag out hugely with wear because they’re linen. So to have them look the way I want to, I’d need to wash them every wear. Which is not sustainable nor good environmentally. So those trousers are now house trousers, and that’s fine, but it’s not something I’m likely to repeat.
On the flip side, I’ve realised this year that viscose is my jam. I reach for viscose garments much more readily than cotton or poly. It’s breathable and drapey. I love viscose jersey, viscose challis, viscose lawn.
So my big lesson is: don’t buy poly, do buy viscose, and probably don’t buy linen. And with time, I’ll learn how I feel about even more fabrics.
5) I have really focused in on what I choose to wear and why. I’ve taken note of the colours I keep reaching for, the prints I love to wear, and the plains I need to coordinate.
Before this, I often shopped with an ‘Ooh pretty’ mentality. I saw a fabric that was beautiful and I wanted it. But often, that fabric was beautiful but just not for me, and I was confusing my appreciation of it being a gorgeous fabric with whether or not I would actually use and wear it.
The best way I can describe this is that I recently saw a beautiful floral Liberty silk satin. It was a bold print, which I love to wear, and it was in bold bright colours. It was one of those things you see in someone else’s basket and you go ‘oooh that’s gorgeous, I want that’. But I kept looking at it and thinking how I’d wear it, and I even decided on a pattern combo. But ultimately, there was a repeating background detail that meant I likely simply wouldn’t wear it – it was too busy for me, in a really small way that many people wouldn’t have even noticed. But I would have. Before the ban, I would probably have bought it impulsively and thought no more. Post ban, thinking reflectively has saved me money and unwanted fabric.
Conclusions
I think it’s pretty clear that I feel overwhelmingly positive about the ban. It might seem like a drastic measure to some, but I wanted to challenge myself to totally reset my habits and get some clarity, and I didn’t think I could do that without some sort of circuit breaker.
I think I’ve had a more thoughtful, cohesive and sustainable sewing practice as a result. For the first time, I think I’ve appreciated the scale of what I have, and the scale of what I can use and consume. I’ve realised that fast fashion can and does cross over into sewing, particularly with FOMO purchasing, and I’ve found that opting out of that has meant that I’ve shifted focus to projects that aren’t necessarily a quick easy sew but fit my needs.
Would I recommend it? Absolutely. Even if someone doesn’t go on a fabric ban, I recommend other aspects of my year, like tracking. It won’t be for everyone and I think you have to take from it that which is useful for you. I needed a different approach to my sewing, and that’s what it gave me.
Sew Pippa 