A little over a year ago my quilting friend died and left me her "quilting center" - lock stock and barrel. Everything including machines. She was petite, red-haired, with the requisite peaches and cream complexion. I am not ... alas.
When I got to looking at what I'd taken on I started thinking about a stash differently. (I was to disburse things to upcoming quilters and quilters who needed better tools.) Her stash contained not only the items that aesthetically and technically appealed to her; it contained fabrics, notions, etc. from her mother and her grandmother. Huge, overwhelming bunches of stuff that I would have never ever have chosen.
A very mixed bag. But it has gotten me to see patterned fabrics as colors. The drama quotients of profusely patterned fabrics. The fact that it is okay to branch out in your design thinking. That being on the floor, surrounded by piles of lengths and pieces of fabric, holding them one against the other, deciding what made your mental juices run, is as valid a way to figure out a project as any other way. That quilts can share emotions. And quilting problems and "errors" may not be. In short, my own personal epiphany. What a day realizing that was!!!
Try visualizing and handling a stash a different way. My friend was a neat stash user. I am not. I could hear her groaning when her washed, ironed, folded bits and pieces became un-all-of-that. Try looking at the fabrics differently. She gave me a huge gift when she left me her quilting center. I just may get to be better at quilting after all. And I am sure she knew just exactly what she was doing to me. A marvelous quilting friend. I hope I might be for you.
Pat