I'm fairly new so I think I can answer how you start a stash. Here's how it happened with me. I started quilting about 3 years ago. I hadn't even heard of the word stash. I just knew that I loved the concept of quilting and I would be in a store and see something that I liked and really didn't have a clue as to what I was going to do with it. Fast forward about 12 months. By that time, you are in a store and you see fabric that you think will go really well with some of the fabric that you have in this one pile in the sewing room. Then in 12 more months you look up and you have several good piles to choose from and now you know that when ever you start a quilt you can go to one of these piles to add to it. And one day, you stumble upon this quilting board and you see everyone talking about stash stash stash and you glance around your sewing room and tadaaaa---You have a stash and didn't even know it! lol