I think it depends on what kind of quilts you like to make. My favorite quilts are "I Spy" so I collect the fabrics such as kids, animals, Christmas, Halloween, etc. And I like to make the GFG. I know that I am going to need fabrics to compliment the others, but I don't buy the coordinating fabrics until I need them I tried to "stock up" when there are sales but I found most of that didn't work within the quilts, or it was a few inches short of my needs and ended up giving a lot of it away. It is fun to buy for a new project.