Wenny Makes It!: Wenny has a party!

Do you ever have so many folds of wool in your stash that you start to feel greedy and that since you have so much, you should give a bunch of it away?

Yeah, me neither.

But I do have a lot, you guys, because of my buying practices. They're not normal. Most people's fabric buying probably goes: get idea, go to fabric store, buy fabric, make item, done. Because I get my fabric from thrift shops, my buying goes more like: see wool on a hanger, buy it, stash it, get idea, check stash for suitable yardage/color, make item, done. So I have a large stash of various sizes, weights, and colors.

It makes my husband crazy; I've almost completely taken over his "man room" with three dressers that have their drawers stuffed with folded fabric. Oh, and there are a dozen or more hangers with more folds hanging in the closet. It's all lovely stuff. Sometimes I go into the closet and just pet it, smoothing my hands over all the yummy wool. I leave the price tags on so I can exult all over again when I pull a piece for a project, eg: "Can you believe I only paid five dollars for this! There's three yards here!"

But things began to reach a critical limit this spring. I brought home five yards of a muted green and when I went to hang it up in the closet, a bolt of plum-colored cotton velveteen and a window fan tried to topple onto me, along with two shoeboxes full of ribbon and bobbins. And I was all out of hangers. And I could barely cram it alongside the others when I ~~stole~~ found a hanger in the bedroom closet.

So I decided to take a drastic measure. I invited eighteen friends to come on over, pick out some wool for themselves, and sit and sew with me for the afternoon. I made a chocolate bundt cake and a pitcher of lemonade. I spent the week leading up to the event gently watering the lawn in the evenings so the grass would be soft and green, not crispy and brown. I set up chairs and small tables under our pop-up and hung the Almighty Boar in place of pride. I set out a big table on the porch with stacks of folded wool, my two thread racks, shoeboxes of notions, scissors and thimbles and measuring tapes. I was all ready and nervous as anything. It was the first "Wenny Makes It -- with YOU!" party!

Two people showed up to make things. But we had such fun! I had planned on providing instruction for a Skjold hood, but my guests wanted to make bags, so they made bags and I worked on a hood for myself. The second round of lemonade had whiskey tipped into it because that's just the way sewing parties go at my place.