Empower Yourself and Your Craftings: Cut The Fabric

Cutting fabric used to really stress me out.

I used to lament for days, weeks, months…. years (!) over what to do with my fabrics. If I liked them, I bought them, and then they sat around…. and sat around…. and sat around… and sure they looked cute, but, they were basically pointless. (Right mom?)

I think it was stressful because I was operating under the idea that all my fabrics were -on their own- way better than any of the ideas I had about what to do with them. Not to mention, I was basically convinced that everything was scarce and I’d never be able to get more of something I really liked if I messed up with the quantity I already had. Even if that was the truth every single time – what good is it, what the heck am I getting out of having a pile of fabrics just sitting around? Nothing. Okay, they are pretty, I’ll admit.

Do you do this? Do you feel inspired by supplies but have a hard time deciding how to use them? Wait for the perfect idea? Feel too intimidated by the materials?

No more! You gotta cut the fabric.

Now, I cut the crap out of my fabrics. I freaking love to cut fabric. Fabrics were meant to be cut! We are lucky enough that right now, fabric is pretty easy to come by, and we don’t have to weave our own yardage. Although, that’s an awesome experience as well.*  Even my super rare vintage fabrics – I cut them! (It helps that most of them are already in small pieces.)

It’s not like I’m making confetti out of it, I’m not just cutting it up for the sake of cutting it up, I have a purpose – I’m making new cool things, but I don’t usually have a plan. Getting started and just digging in is the most important part. Without the first cut, I’d get nowhere, plan or no plan. Having a large tub of fabric bits is great, and I love that, but using them up means I’ve made room to buy more!

Fabrics are nothing without brilliant ideas of what to do with them, so go forth and cut your fabrics! And while you are at it, break out some of that other stuff you’ve been staring at for too long. Break those brushes in! Crack the binding on the sketchbook and stop worrying about using all the ink in those “special” markers. Because life is short and fabric is just processed cotton (that’s really fun to shop for). So what if you mess up sometimes?

Through the mess and madness of mistake making, something cool will happen, and the ideas that mistakes generate are worth the infrequent loss of material. And ideas are like pennies in the piggy bank, money for a rainy day, so don’t worry about messing up, just worry about finding time and getting started. And having a sharp pair of scissors.



*handwovens are extremely difficult to cut. If you need a few days and lot of deep breaths before sniping, do that.