Originally Posted by
cricket_iscute
3) Stuff for homeless quilts. Frankly, this is the issue right here. I continue to make charity quilts, working on them every week. People keep giving me fabric, faster than I can sew it up. I get a lot of scraps, and have a whole big laundry basket of scraps washed, trimmed, and pressed and ready to go into string quilts. I bought an Accuquilt GO to make cutting faster for homeless scrap quilts. If I could give up this category of quilting, I could donate a ton of stuff to others to use for charity quilts. My house would look a whole lot better. I would have more time. I wouldn't have to pay to have it moved. I know all this, and I know there is very little thanks for all this work, yet somehow, I keep doing it. If anyone has thoughts on the subject, please feel free to post.
Cricket,
Most of my huge fabric stash is used up in piecing tops for Project Linus quilts. Others in our guild do the quilting, binding, labeling, etc. I make between 100 and 150 tops each year. Every January, I go through my considerable stash, organize, and separate stuff I didn't see a future quilt in for me or my family. Then I go to work using up the "charity stuff" some of which was really great fabric just not "us" anymore.
So what happened? I began concentrating on sewing up the pulled-for-PL fabrics exclusively in my piecing. I ended up only doing quilts to keep for myself IF I did a mystery or took a class! That meant that the stuff I "LOVED" was waiting patiently on the shelf, and waiting and waiting, while I worked almost exclusively on "What was I thinking?" fabric that I didn't care much for or even disliked!
The steps I have taken to combat this dilemma are to begin sending backs with my pieced top PL donations and outright fabric donations to our Project Linus efforts. I don't take anymore scraps. I can make more faster from my stash without all the effort of prepping others' scraps. I send orphans and little odd stacks of piecing to another Carolina "QB sister" who has charity uses for these so I'll keep sending to her as I accumulate. There are plenty of people with limited resources just aching to help in efforts like we support with little or no means to do so. Find them locally or on the QB and PURGE in that direction. Your homeless can have more help sooner by your doing so.
I'd send this category TOTALLY out to others! Think of how you can use the unused charity fabric moving money to start your charity stash in your new home! Personally, I'd even get the WIPs in that purge. I'd start with all new stuff in my charity efforts in my new home. I have a GO and I love it but rarely use it. It can make you think that scraps can be handled effortlessly but the time it takes to get them pressed and ready for it can negate it's timesaving aspect.