I've been quilting since I retired (8 years), and have more fabric than I can use! When I see something I really like at a quilt shop, I might buy it for our guild's charity quilt group that I belong to. 1.5 yards will make a back for a cuddle quilt, and less will do for blocks or sashing or binding. 3 yards if it is really cute! I get to shop, but don't have to store the purchase and get to play with it by making charity quilts. Tax write off, too! I never did scrappy quilts, but just took a class from Linda Ballard (4 patch for the 90's) and I've become a convert! I had purchased a fat quarter of every fabric in the line of a friend (Rob Appel of the Cotton Ball in Morro Bay, CA) and ended up with 39 different fabrics that were good colors and interesting patterns each in themselves, but were hard to put together in a non-scrappy quilt. I cut them into rectangles as instructed in LInda's class with a white background and they magically transformed into triangles and squares and a wonderful quilt without ever cutting a triangle or square! I'm going to take the ribbons off all those beautifully matched 8 piece fat quarter collections and get busy mixing and matching and use up some stash. This is fun!