Building Up Stash??
 

I don't have much of a stash or scraps. So I need to order or buy my fabric for any quilt, for the most part. So I've been grabbing flash sales and going to the FabricRecycle store in town. I've only made one quilt, several wall hangings and will be finishing the top of a large one as soon as I get the fabrics, which is ordered.

My mom sews and was floored at the prices of the quilt fabric, which is why I like the sales. But I'm fabric picky, Moda, Kona, etc. Am I being picky? Some of the cotton at commercial fabric stores feels like paper, or sand paper.

How do you handle building up a stash? Do you just order what you need? Or do you already have it?

Most of us started building our stash with leftovers from quilting projects. Over time you slowly build your stash by purchasing a little more fabric than you actually need for a project. Sometimes you can find excellent fabric at yard or estate sales.

We had this discussion recently on the same topic; lots of different perspectives!

http://www.quiltingboard.com/main-f1...t254890-7.html

I didn't build my stash with any sort of deliberation, I just would buy things that I liked (especially if they were on sale). Then I started getting more purposeful when I realized my stash was full of totally random things. Now I try to keep in mind where my stash is "weak" - lately I've been watching out for good deals on blenders in general and white-on-white and white-on-cream in particular. I also have a list a mile long of quilts I want to make, and for some of those I have begun accumulating fabrics. Like I want to do a "skyscraper" quilt, so I've started accumulating fabrics in various shades of grey that have textures that I think might work for a part of a building.

I also buy fabrics on vacation - when I was in Hawaii I bought enough Hawaiian prints to make two quilts. I haven't made them YET and that trip was over a year ago, so they're languishing in my stash until I get around to them.

The best/worst is when I go on a road trip. Then I want to hit every fabric store along the route, and I want to buy *something* at each store. I try to pick a theme so the fabrics "go" together but I'll buy whatever pushes my buttons. I rent on a road trip to Oregon not long ago (to see the Sisters outdoor quilt show) and I bought a ridiculous amount of fabric on that trip, much of it featured birds or celestial themes. So I sort of stuck to a theme but I bought a lot more too.

Right now I'm actually to a point where I have zero desire to add more to my stash. I still do, if I see something I just "can't resist", but I'm not seeking to stash build anymore. Now I need to knuckle down and trap some of these quilts that are flittering around in my head in some fabric! But before that, I have 4 quilts to make for Christmas, and that's coming much faster than I am prepared for!

It just happened. I buy a little extra, just in case I make an error. I've bought a few fabrics that I thought would work, but decided I didn't like, so into the stash they went. Then I inherited fabric from my Mom and MIL. Then people started giving me fabric. Now I have more than I want. True, it's not all LQS quality fabric, but it's nice. 2015 is going to be a stash buster year. I'm going to make charity quilts, to try to get rid of some of the fabric.

For whatever reason, I cannot buy fabric just because I like it. Everything I have purchased has had an intended use, although some of it just didn't work out.

I don't maintain a 'stash' per se. I do have leftovers from previous projects. I don't have room for a stash to begin with. Beyond that, as many other folks have mentioned in other threads on the subject, I'm sure my tastes will change over time as well as, if I buy x amount of something and decide later on that it would be just the perfect fabric for 'this' quilt, will I have enough for that purpose??? Just what I do.

I usually by an extra 1/2 yard because of shrinkage and faux pas. I also hit the estate sales and when DH is done with his jeans and shirts I keep them. Estate sales are great for stash build also. I've purchased flannel receiving blankets for backing and or batting for when I'm going to finish quilts for family up north. Found a xxxl cotton slip with lace trim. $.50. 100% cotton. Am about to get new sheets. The pillowcases are great for when you need to pre wash certain items. Noting wrong with being picky, especially if you like to work with it. The project depends on what I'm going to use as with others.

Coming from someone who had so much fabric that I needed to give a lot of it away to different organizations and women at my church. I worked in fabric stores for years. Even now I feel like I have a lot of fabric still that I may never get to sew through all of it. I would buy what I like with no project in mind. Doing this you end up with a lot of fabrics that are not being used and just stored. I am finding now that I want to upgrade my fabric stash to more modern prints so what to do with my current collection? I started making pillowcases (to donate) and scrappy quilts to use up these older fabrics.

I would say that how you build your stash will depend on what type of quilter you are. Either you will buy for projects or buy by collections or buy what you like. Think about what you want your quilting journey to be and plan your stash building well so that you do not end up with a bunch of unused, hoarded fabrics.

There are lots of online places to buy fabric on sale if you cannot find it at shops near you. I buy most of my fabric on sale or at significantly discounted prices. I have also scored some treasures from estate sales or destashing sales of other quilters that I find on Craigslist. Craftsy often has some great clearance sales on fabric bundles. Try some of the different stash building methods mentioned to see what works best for you. This may be the best way to find what will work for you.

left overs from quilting projects and I check out the thrift stores I can there feel the fabric and it is really cheap

I started quilting in 1992, back when fabric was about $5 or 6 a yard. I would get quarter yards. I have never bought for a specific project, but just because I like something. Lots of variety in my sewing room.

I have alot of yarn, cause I want to make a few shawls. Suddenly, I have 2 shawls I need to finish and my yarn is put away, or taken to the FabricRecycle store for store credit...when I left the store the other day, I noticed they have charm packs. So today I am going back. It's snowing tomorrow...I'm sewing.

If for instance, it calls for 2 1/2 yards, I buy 3. I still have some left over from watercolor quilts...but no yardage per se.

I started collecting fabric so if I wanted to start a project at 10:00 at night I would have fabric on hand to work with. Just before I retired I found a wonderful sale where I bought a bunch of fabric in the same genre (does that word apply to fabric?). I purchased 85 yards for less than $200.00. A couple months later I purchased another 20 yards of neutrals that would work with that fabric. I'm still working on that fabric and will be for a long, long time. My advice would be to purchase fabric in the same style, color, etc to make a couple quilts. The rest of your stash will build itself when you have leftovers from each quilt that you make. Sometimes too large a stash can be as crippling as too small a stash.

Unless you like to make scrappy quilts, I do not recommend just buying random pieces of fabric just because they are on sale. I made this mistake when I started, thinking I needed to have a stash. Well I still have most of that fabric!! I have learned now to buy for a quilt pattern I have selected, and you will built a stash from those leftovers. The other random pieces just never seem to fit into a project. I keep thinking I will figure a way to use them, but after 2 years it still hasn't happened.

I have quite a large stash and wish I didn't! It would be more fun for me now to buy new fabrics for a quilt. Storage and maintenance of a stash can become burdensome, and fabric is something that usually does not appreciate in value over time. Unless you are buying designer fabrics, fabric automatically becomes worth only half what you paid for it. I have seen quilter estate sales where fabric is sold pennies on the pound.

A stash can be a creative resource for some quilters, but for many of us it becomes something of an albatross.

Just yesterday I went to the new JoAnn's about 20 minutes from here. Looked at their prices, $8-$12 per yard. I just needed fabric pens and thread. I'm glad I have my stash of 25 large plastic tubs full of fabric, that I bought at Walmart and from a few members on here. I make a lot of quilts and pillowcases for charities and wouldn't be able to afford it at the prices now. I have had a lot of my fabrics since the '80's and they are still good.

For me it is priceless. It means I can decide to make a quilt, think about the colors and head to my stash, pull the fabrics out and make it.

I just gifted this one today to my neighbor. She likes browns. I don't have the option to run to the store. I threw in some older fabrics like some calicos and some more modern newer type prints and a couple of novelty prints purchased on fabric.com or hancocks of Paducah's website. I had them all already. Here in Poland, you can't really count on the thrift stores having what you need. :D

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What a beautiful quilt!! Brown is my third preferred color for quilts....after purple and blue, but I don't see many brown quilts. I love yours.

Dina

I just went through my stash a couple weeks ago. I got rid of the thin, cheesy fabrics that I bought when I was first sewing. I've found with my quilting, that I like to buy fabric for a project. I like to pick out that special piece of new yumminess and play with it. So I've decided now that I'm not really going to 'stash', except in that I'll have bits left over from my projects. That should help out my closet! LOL!

I think it smart of you to be picky about what fabric you buy - getting good fabric means you will be happier with your projects, and they'll last longer.

Once you're more familiar with the brands that you like and are happy with the quality, you'll be confident to order from those lines online.

I wouldn't worry about building a stash - it will happen on its own! I always purchase more than the pattern calls for (grand ideas of making matching pillows or other goodies, allowing for miscutting and pattern errors).

But I certainly have lots of purchases where I just fell in love with the fabric and didn't have a particular pattern in mind - usually end up with five fabrics that go together, a couple of yards each, 3 yards for what might be a border fabric.

if i had to do it all over again, i'd never build a stash. i now have my "stash" in plastic bins. all 20 of em. they cover a wall almost to the ceiling. then i have cookie containers the metal ones very large they have threads. then i have cloth bags for each project that "i'm working on." they are piled up in a corner of this room, which now you cant get into there is a small walk area. whats in pins are too hard to get to. so i go to the store and buy what i need. either i dont have the right color, or there isnt enough or i just cant get to it. after a while your style changes as well as the fabric in the shops. save yourself aggrevation and dont bother. then, my fabric doesnt come from joann's. it comes from a local fabric shop or two or three. so my fabric is not cheap. now do i really want to throw it out? do i want to donate it? i'm at the point of overkill.

Your fabric stash sounds like my yarn stash. As soon as the roads clear up after tomorrow's snow fall, I'm giving some of my cheaper yarn to the Fabric Recycle store. My yarn was stacked in boxes, which I hated, I got it down to one box. My embroidery floss are together in numbered order except that that I'm using. I have tons of aida cloth. Mine isn't basic aida, it's from Picture This Plus and Silkweaver. My thread is all DMC and Weeks with Thread Gatherer silk. The quilt fabric I buy comes from quilt shops. The quilt fabric I have from Joanns feels like paper to me. I will use the scraps I have, but I don't care for it. I always bought my fabric at quilt shops. But occasionally I bought fat quarters from Joanns. It has to be washed in fabric softener. I am so ocd about my fabric it has to have a designer name on the selvage label....and my yarn isn't cheap either. Not any more.

I built my stash by checking out fabric in every store I went into. I did purchase a lot of clearanced material at JoAnns and WalMart. WalMart actually had some nice material at one time, then they decided to stop selling it at a lot of their stores, but that decision backfired on them so they brought it back but not like they had years ago. I am not a fabric snob, it doesn't have to say Moda or Andover or any other big name. If I like the pattern and the color and as long as it feels nice and is that thin, flimsy stuff I would purchase it. My mom said that I should buy several yards if I saw something I liked, but I think because she sewed clothing she told me that. I now realize that you don't have to purchase more than 1/2 to 1 yard of anything, unless it's something really, really nice and can be used with many different fabrics do I buy more now. Like some other quilters I am now donating many pcs of fabric to a local place that makes quilts and pillow cases for children with cancer and also to shelters. No one builds a stash in a few weeks, it takes years.

When I started building my stash (still not bookoes like a lot of gals on here) I bought from #1piecemaker. Her fabric is awesome and prices are substantially lower than most that I've seen. I bought some beautiful fabric from her. If you do want to buy from her, please mention my name. Her sales are monthly, if not more. Give it a try, you won't be disappointed.

Ellie (aka sewellie

I go to the local FabricRecycle store. Quilters or sewers donate to the store for store credit, and people like me buy it.I bought 5 mini packages of charm pieces today for $1.20 each. I need to make 156 3 inch squares, and I so far, have 35. I LOVE the Fabric Recycle store, I can't stay away and I go every Friday. I bought enough blue for my snowman top of it, gold for the stars. I should've bought green, and I ordered red from a flash sale with CraftTown fabrics for about $4.00 a yard. I need white, and green. If FabricRecyle doesn't have it, there's 2 quilt shops. One is 5 mintues away, small. The other is huge, and is near the FabricRecyle store. I saved my scraps today. But I guess, I need to know exactly what to buy, as in the snowman quilt, and buy extra, which I"m doing.

Lesson learned, I tried to finish a quilt and I had to order yardage from etsy. Thank goodness I found it. I'll cut it into my own strips and finish it.

So right now I'm buying what I need, though I do like fat quarters. I have the entire sock monkey set of fat quarters I bought a few years ago...surely there's something I can do with them. And I like jelly rolls, which I have several of.

That is beautiful! Just stunning.

My stash is mainly leftovers but there is a lot of it. I do buy some fabrics when I am on trips. I bought quite a bit of cheap fabric from JAF when I first started quilting a few years ago. Recently I went through and pulled all the junky fabric. I know I will never use it. I might sew it into dog beds for the shelter. My problem is that not too much goes together. I have been planning to have a night to separate all the strips into piles that work together for quilts. I did not know when I started quilting that I would acquire so much stuff!

My mother's stash and mine started with leftovers from sewing projects for the kids and grandkids. It was a way to use up those scraps and make something useful out of them. Then the quilting bug bit us and we bought pieces to go with our leftovers, and then had leftovers from the pieces we bought and it just went from there. I have cupboards (plural) full of fabrics and it is wonderful to go to the and pick out what I want at 11:00 at night or very early in the morning. I also have a stash of thread and other quilting supplies that is always available to me. Occasionally I buy new fabric if something strikes me but I am trying to use from my stash as much as possible. The fabric was a lot less expensive when I bought that and I feel faint when I see the new prices on the new fabrics. It is not necessary to buy just for your stash, but buy when you need it and if it is something you really like and a stash will take care of itself.

I am a bit of a fabric snob as well; however, I tend to purchase by feel rather than name. I seldom pay more than $5 a yard. My stash is quite large and my purchasing has been considerably less in the last year.

My sewing room and stash started about 15 years ago it started with my first grand child. I started with flannels. I made a crazy patch ive always loved sewing. I work in a fabric department and get to order the fabrics. My stash has built to full i started with fat quarters then half yards then full yards,then 3 yards, then 5 yards, i have them organized in totes by color and types of fabric. I have since slowed down on the building. Now im pretty specific i buy only when it calls me. I love the feel and textures and just being able to touch it. I often will just wil pet abolt of fabric when cutting for someone at work. Its really bad when i get to the end of the bolt and i have to have the rest. I have 2 seasons fishing and sewing its now sewing for me. Its wonderful to be able to shop from my stash or share with someone who wants to learn with out having to break the bank. Fortunately or unfortunately my son loves quilting as well he also enjoys the textures and love of fabric. We call it therapy.

If the pattern calls for 3 yards, well then 5 yards is better (just in case). I have accumulated a nice stash with this philosophy. My friend buys 1/4 yard, then I buy a yard....'cuz I just might need it someday. If I really like the fabric, I buy more.

When I first started quilting, I bought fat quarters and half-yard cuts of fabric I liked, even if I didn't know what I would do with it. Then when projects started coming to mind, I switched to yardage for setting squares and triangles, borders and backs. Now I just buy what I need to fill in when I absolutely, positively can't find what I need in my stash.

As for the price, cotton is a commodity and last time I checked, our federal government pays hefty subsidies to U.S. cotton farmers, which distorts the true market price as well as supply. Wish they'd get out of our business!

Rhonda, in my opinion you should always buy the best fabric you can afford - emphasis on what you can afford! Fabric prices are high and unfortunately, our budgets are low! Nonetheless, being picky is always a good thing.

Like you, I haunt sales. I have a large stash, probably because I like fabric a lot and quilting is my excuse to buy it. Most of my fabric is from sales, and I buy because I like it. Here and there I buy a fabric because I HAVE TO HAVE IT! The 'have to have it' fabrics are very difficult for me to use because if I use it, I won't have it anymore.

I'm banging myself int he head cause I didn't buy the Wear Warm Clothes fabric from 1996 in yardage. So this time around, and I'm staying with this, I'm limiting fat quarters.Not saying I don't like them, but I'd rather have a yard.

I have quite a large collection too and I really am glad I do (well, most of the time)....I rarely have to go buy anything to do a quilt ..I just shop in my stash and usually find pleasing things that go together.........
I always check the fabric section of any store I am in, and I look at thrift stores too...often I find clothes that are really good fabric and just be sure to look well about it, esp to see if it has fade or stain or etc..........I hardly ever spend more than about $2.00 a yard, but often you can find ends of bolts that were a lot more $$ to start with...one of my favorite places is Hobby Lobby...the ends of bolts are often marked down there...also check the remnants bin, never know what may be there.......if you have a local paper that offers free adds, put one in there that says you are interested in fabric... watch for yard sales too........some retirement homes have sales during the year and you can get estate finds that way..........and tell every person you know that you want fabric, if they have any they don't want....

I've been quilting a little over 2 years. I have been only buying for the current project. In the beginning, I was becoming a buyer, instead of a do-er. I don't know if I'll ever use some of those fabrics. I do usually buy a little more than needed, so I am slowly building up a "stash" but mostly smaller pieces.

http://www.quiltingboard.com/main-f1...h-t256817.html

I'm fabric picky, also. I use mostly Moda. I don't like the cheap looking fabrics. Since there are no LQS close to me, I shop online at Etsy.com. So my stash is Moda. I do have a few items that I have bought from M* on the Daily Deal that have not been Moda, but are still good quality. :wave:

I also do this. :D

My stash has accumulated pretty slowly, or seems to have. I've been quilting for 5 years or so. I'm more inclined to do large quilts than small. I seldom purchase yardage that I don't need but if I see one I love, I check to see if it is standard stock. I buy from chain stores but am picky as well. I'm fascinated with scrappy projects and do littles with my quilting group to sell as fundraisers for our community center. I have learned from experience to buy extra fabric. I'm collecting mediums and dark strips for a "plus" quilt and have just purchased fabrics for my third wedding quilt. Each one I make will add to my stash, strips, and scraps. So will yours!

How do you handle building up a stash? Do you just order what you need? Or do you already have it?[/QUOTE]
I adore fabric and use any chance to buy it. You just need to take advantage of sales and stock up on neutrals whenever they are available. I saw a neutral quilt made by Maureen in Ottawa and I've been collecting neutrals ever since for this quilt and neutrals are used in every quilt. If you don't like scrappy you will collect in a different way than I would. I hunt sales and buy a range of colors so I will be prepared - I'm prepared, believe me I'm prepared.