Oh, WMU, I'm jealous of your $20 bonanza and totally agree that an exemption is more than reasonable! On a good day at a thrift store around here that will generally get me a maximum of 2.5m of fabric, possibly in bits or in the form of cool shirts or sheets. It's pretty standard to see fabric priced at about $8/m here, even if they're very random pieces or small or not very good quality. :-( I can't wait to see what you got and how you use it.
Iceblossom, you make a good point but I don't know that we necessarily need a separate thread for great deals or other fabric acquisitions, thank goodness. :-) The way I see it is that in spite of our best efforts, temptation is out there and sometimes it gets the better of us. What I find exciting and really helpful is hearing/seeing how people turn those acquisitions into success stories or even just reflections (as we've seen here in the last few days from WMU, Pet, and yourself) on what fabric and our stash means to us. It can also be really great to know (especially for those who might be newer to the FM thread) that just because you've acquired fabric you might not have technically needed it doesn't mean you've been kicked off the FM bus permanently - so many hands are reaching out to pull you back on when you're ready! :-)
Pet - sounds like you've set yourself up for quite a challenge but I'm glad you've found a new community to quilt with. :-)
Snooze - congratulations on what sounds like a brilliantly successful and fun trip to MSQC!
While reading the most recent posts, I almost feel like there is an element of kismet in many of our approaches to our stash. We recognize the value of what we have, we know there will be a place for it sometime, somewhere, even if we can't see it right away, and we can all celebrate together when the journey to its final destiny as a quilt or pillowcase or other project is realized. I'm often surprised by how I somehow manage to find fabrics that play nicely with each other when they came from so many sources, eras, designers... and it's so satisfying when they come together into a beautiful whole. I don't think I'll ever be stash-free but I wouldn't want to be - it's one of my favourite parts of quilting, so my goal is to simply keep it under control and within my storage space and to keep making quilts out of it. :-)