Do you keep track of how much yardage you purchase and use for the year?
Seems I always ran into a quilt blogger or two who did keep track, and think keeping a list is a great way to see just how much I purchase and use. Given that I'm prone to buying a lot of seasonal yardage, I'm hoping for at least a balance at the end of the year!
Of course my list is composed of approximates on the OUT side, usually in whole, half, or quarter amounts to make it easier. I'm certainly not going to measure every piece of fabric I put into a quilt! My purchases though, are usually made in even yardage amounts or sometimes half yards, though there's the odd number because I'll take the end of bolt. Remember, this is not exact science here - I'm just wanting a rough idea.
So how did I do for 2021? Well, there's two ways of looking at my list.
My yardage OUT was approximately 73 yards, from a mix of runners, wall hangings, and some larger quilts. The year before was 88 yards, as both years were extremely productive. Seems I'm pretty consistent.
Now my yardage IN. On the whole, I took in a whopping 202 yards - YIKES! That is certainly not good, and I wonder where it all disappeared to in my stash. With that kind of number, I should be exercising better control right?
But if I look at what I purchased, it turns out 122 yards were purchased for kits, the ever popular Fireworks and Winter Feed. Deducting 122 from 202 leaves just 80 yards purchased for stash building, a much more tolerable number.
With 73 yards out and 80 yards in, I'm actually in pretty good shape! Unfortunately, I can't compare it to the 2020 numbers, as I'm sure I bought kit yardage but did not designate it as such. Certainly learned my lesson to mark kit yardage for the years to come, so that doesn't count against my efforts!
Since jumping on the yardage in/out bandwagon two years ago, I've learned a lot about stash management. Keeping the yardage IN side was helped this year due to working on the relative's house - I had very little time to shop and purchased nothing since the end of September. Hmm, wonder how long I can keep that streak going???
With that in mind, I plan on keeping the list again this year, though mine is off to a meager start. How about you? Ready to keep track? There's still time to start your yardage in/yardage out list!
Happy Quilting
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I have always thought unless you run a business there is no reason to keep track of how much you buy (or use) unless you really have a buying problem. I keep trying to use what I have in the sewing room and mainly buy background fabrics but somehow some fat quarter bundles do work their way into the room seemingly by themselves.
ReplyDeleteI love your idea of fabric accountability and started it last year. My 2021 totals were 53.33 yards in, 81.33 yards out, negative 28 yards for the year, Yay!
ReplyDeleteMy 2021 fabric goal was to use seasonal prints and I did piece a queen size Valentine's quilt, a queen size Christmas quilt, a throw size Christmas quilt & four small holiday projects. And I bought less than 2 yards of Christmas fabric during the post holiday sales this year, another win, ha! 2022 goal is The Year of Precuts - they're going down!