Unleash the power of your hidden fabric stash!
Only 26 days until you can swap, sell or donate at Bolt & Spool’s Stash Party!
Thank you to everyone who has responded thus far to our call to clean out your fabric stash to help others. We have been overwhelmed with the response!
You just won’t believe the beautiful fabrics that are languishing in our collective sewing rooms, basements, attics and spare closets! We have been posting pictures on Instagram of some of the things we’ve received over the past few weeks. These are free for swapping if you donate too!
I cleaned out my attic! Here’s a before photo…
And an after photo…
My pile of swap fabric (left) is HUGE! I am thrilled to be getting rid of things I know I will never use! My keep pile is tiny (right)!
In case you missed it, here is the scoop on what we’re doing:
If cleaning out and organizing your sewing stash is on your agenda in coming weeks…then participating in our Stash Party should be too! Now through February 14th drop off any fabric you no longer need or want, then shop the Stash Party on Saturday February 28th!
We will be accepting fabric that you just want to give away as well as fabric that you would like to try to sell. Then, at the party we will have a table of free fabric (we’re calling this the swap table) and a table of consignment fabric. If you’ve donated fabric, you can shop the Stash Party swap table for free. If you haven’t donated, we will ask for $5 donation to take something from the swap table.
After the Stash Party, all unsold consignment fabric will be returned to you. The donations and any “un-swapped” fabric will be presented to one of a few non-profit groups who are in need of fabric.
The following organizations can use fabric of any description and varying sizes down to 12” x 12” so don’t feel the need to “edit” what you bring to the party! Fabric is used for teaching/training and may be used in end products that will be sold in the organizations’ retail stores.
Who will you be helping?
Esperanza Threads (esperanzathreads.com) is a local non-profit organization in Cleveland that trains low-income individuals to learn industrial sewing skills. The organization was created to address the social justice issue of sewing sweatshops that provided low-paying wages with poor working conditions and long hours. They also train underemployed or migrant workers each year and assist in placing them in lucrative industrial sewing positions.
Re:new (renewproject.org) is a non-profit organization based in Glen Ellyn IL, that creates a space for refugee women from around the world to thrive through sewing! One of the largest pieces for refugees adjusting to life in America is employment. Some refugees are considered unemployable due to language barriers and lack of transferable skills. Other women with school-age children find it difficult to acquire flexible working hours. Re:new is providing a solution. In the last three years, more than 120 refugee women have learned to sew and most have gone on to find employment!
Geauga Humane Society (geaugahumane.org) provides and finds homes for abandoned cats, dogs and other domestic animals in Geauga County. They can use old fabric that’s not suitable for the other organizations as bedding for the animals.
Bolt & Spool’s free scrap bin…a bin where kids who want to learn to sew can pick through scraps to make small pillows or doll clothes or rocket launchers…wherever their creativity takes them!
We are certainly not limited to these organizations. If you know of other non-profit organizations that could benefit from our over-indulgences and best intentions, let us know! We’d be happy to contact them to learn more.
We have also been asked by several customers to reach out to our Bolt & Spool community to see if there are volunteer sewing opportunities available. So let us know if you can think of any of those too – we can start a list to post on our website.
Again, thank you for such a positive response to this effort. Debbie and I are super-excited to be working on this community-wide project with all of you!