Thanks so much for the positive feedback about my hoodie dress. I wore it to work today and can report that it is not only toasty warm – great in the airconditioned machine rooms – but also survived my having to lie on the floor to plug cables into servers. So it’s definitely growing on me.

But today I have a puzzle. How is it that I have almost no fabric left in my stash, and yet it still takes up two large boxes? Does anyone else have this problem? Plus another large box of patterns. If anyone’s wondering, the fourth box in the picture isn’t sewing stuff, but its contents need a sort-out too.

I try not to keep pieces that are not a usable size. But I’m pretty sure that all the ‘real’ fabric I have left is my Death Star fabric, a navy blue wool jersey, a red and white swirl print cotton and a large quantity of white poly-cotton sheeting. I have plans for all of it except the swirl print, which was going to be a 60s A-line minidress before I went off the idea. Although come to think of it, it would make a fine trial run fabric for my current wrap dress project.

So where did all the space go? Of course there are other things in the boxes. Lots of half metre lengths of fabric left over at the end of projects, especially linings, because I am paranoid and always buy far too much yardage. And then the leftover pieces are too big to automatically throw out so they end up in the stash. Anything suitable for quilting gets found a home eventually, but what on earth do you do with half a metre of leftover sweater knit, fleece, or lining?