Hi Holly! What a beautiful wall hanging! That's beautiful for anyone, not just a first try! Good for you for taking a class to begin with. Keep it up! We learn so much from other people, and from places like this Quilting Board. You can teach us what you learn in class.
One of the things I did to build a stash was to visit places like the Salvation Army and Goodwill. I wasn't expecting to find "quilt quality" material there, but I did find a while lot of "practice fabric", and that's been important to me. I've practiced my scant ¼" seams, over and over, until I could make a 6" block come out at 6" square. (I won't tell you what it was like when I started). I've practiced all sorts of odd shapes. In fact, I won't start a quilt until I've done the blocks on my practice fabric over and over again until I'm comfortable that I'm doing them right and they're coming out squared. I don't like to practice on expensive fabric! I've been using old floral fabric and making "free motion quilting sandwiches" and practiced my free motion quilting by trying to go around big flowers first, then medium sized flowers, and I'm working my way toward smaller flowers. I've got all sorts of prints to practice on, and the nice thing is that I bought them all so cheaply, it doesn't matter if I just throw them away. I bought a very nice set of sheets, and I've made pillow cases, nicely decorated, to finally fit the pillows on my bed. The ones that had come with my sheet set were too small. Anything really nice, like velvet, brocade, satin, decorator fabric, etc., is slowly (very slowly) being worked into a Crazy Quilt. I started with muslin foundation squares, with finished edges, and am just sewing a block at a time, bits and pieces as I go along. Eventually, when the blocks are done, I'll quilt the blocks to a batting and backing, which won't completely quilt it, but if I slip a quilting stitch here and there along a seam line on each block, and then embroider over the quilting stitch, I'm thinking it will be perfect. But enough of me.
We were talking about building stashes. So that's my "practice stash", and like the others, I pick up extra fabric when I shop for quilts, and fabric that just catches my eye, and I just have to have it. Where I really scored is that I go to a lot of yard sales and estate sales, and I've picked up some good fabric there. But at this one Estate Sale, I scored Big! The lady had a sewing room, and it was stuffed with fabric. Someone had already taken the sewing machine, and the son was anxious to clean out the sewing room. He told me I could have any and/or all the the fabric for a flat $100. We are talking about bags and bags and bags of fabric. It totally filled up my Toyota Camry to the point where I had to make two trips. And you could see where she had been sewing off the top of her stack, or in other words, the oldest part, and the fabrics on the bottom were brand new, still in their packaging. And the bolts of fabric! I was incredulous! Barely squeezed everything in on my second trip. So, instant stash!
There were a lot of "Baby Fabric" in that stash, and I only have 2 little ones to sew for, so I picked out a few yards of what I wanted, and donated the rest to a group in town that makes quilts for preemies and sick children. It was a huge amount, including several full bolts of material, and they were thrilled to get it. That cut the stash down to a manageable size for me. The fabric is all good stuff, straight out of our local quilt shop, top of the line material. I'll be quilting right out of this stash for years.
So the point is, keep your eyes open, and realize that there are different fabrics for different uses, and you can find fabrics in places you hadn't imagined. Even right here on the Quilting Board!
Happy Holidays!