Originally Posted by
Schill93
When your single with just one income and struggling to pay the bills, quilting as a hobby can be very difficult. That is if you go into drool mode at the sight of all the new beautiful fabrics in current day collections. I know we can always find fabric at yard sales and thrift stores, but how lovely will those quilts be? You might be able to occasionally find some pretty fabric, but how many will coordinate and go together when you want to make your quilt. It's a good thing that scrappy is in vogue now.
I for one want to make every quilt given to someone whether charity or family member beautiful, and sometimes that can be difficult on a strict budget.
Much of what you say here really resonates with me but I'm learning to work around some of these challenges... I know others have shared some of the same strategies but I thought I'd give my approach.
1) Love drooling over the new fabrics? I do, too! But I also try to limit my visits to the LQS to essential trips only (mostly for batting or backing for a current project) and if I am totally overwhelmed by the need to buy new, I take a look at their bargains - my LQS offers scrap bags at $6-8/m (when fabric usually costs $18-28 this is a good deal) and sometimes will offer similar prices on certain lines of yardage as well. I'll confess, the scrap bags are actually a huge weakness for me but so far I've been lucky and have found some real gems that I was able to use in the bags that I bought that I didn't really "need" :-)
2) Speaking of scraps, I actually have a bit of a habit of buying these from thrift stores as well. And we're talking seriously small scraps, sometimes. (
https://www.quiltingboard.com/showth...94#post8515494) I find the key thing with thrifted fabrics (whether they come from a store or an estate sale or are just gifted to you) is to be patient. The quilt I made here was inspired by a small collection (a sandwich-sized baggie) of HSTs I got in a bundle from the thrift store. I liked the blue/cream combo and built a quilt up from that "feeling." But I didn't actually use them until several months after I bought them - I just needed to play with fabric one day and decided to go through that bag for my fix. :-) To everything there is a season - even thrifted fabric bits! And don't forget that moment of joy when you do find something amazing at the thrift store!
3) Scrappy may be "in," I guess (I'm not that on top of quilt fashion - scrappy has always been something I liked), but it is also beautiful. I agree that I would like every quilt I make to be beautiful (I allow dog quilts to have functionality as a higher priority, but they also need to be attractive). Since the beginning of Covid, I have made over a dozen quilts of varying sizes, and the ones that get the most positive feedback and signs of coveting are the ones I made from scraps and what I had, and not from a coordinated collection. There are a couple of fabrics that I'm not sure I'll ever find a home in a quilt for, and I've put them in a bag away from my "definite keepers," but I've been surprised before and so I'm not getting rid of them just yet. :-)
4) Emotional investment is important for me as I'm making a quilt. Often I'm thinking of the intended recipient (whether I know them or not) but I also like to engage with the quilt process in a meaningful way. I am definitely not a "quilt in a day" type of person! I find I enjoy taking the time to put my scrappy fabric collections together so that they _do_ coordinate. The one quilt I made from a single fabric collection was very pretty and went together quickly and I'm pleased with it (as was the recipient), but I never felt a strong connection to it as I made it. I think most of the investment (colour, scale selection, etc.) was done for me so while I sent it with a lot of love for the recipient, it's been a bit of a case of "out of sight, out of mind" which is not the case with most of the other quilts I've made.
Of course, none of these strategies/approaches/observations is 100% consistent, but these are the trends I've noticed in my quilting practice and they explain why I don't mind quilting on a budget.