I was a colector until I moved and made simple block quilts for charity out of it and now I'm a project quilter. It make my life and home less stressful.

I have more than enough fabric to last as long as I will live...the one with the most fabric wins right? But I am doing a good thing as I am donating 4 plastic tubs of fabric for charity quilts. I have washed, dried and ironed until I am weak...ha ha. Plus cutting for kits. I have them returned and I put on the backing and a friend quilts on her longarm. 4 inch over-hang on the quilt backing so we can filp and sew the binding. Oh yes...I have lots of help sewing as quilters are the best and always up for charity!!

i am trying not to buy any unless i have to or i just love it but i went into walmart yesterday to develope pictures had to wait an hour guess where?!! fabric dept. i found some blacks and bought a yard of each. i don't have much black and sometimes u just need a little for whatever in a quilt

[quote=vivientan]I have this bad habit of buying nice fabrics, especially precuts such as FQs, charm squares, jelly rolls etc, even though I do not have any projects in mind. Then I will search for suitable projects to use them, when it should be the other way round. Now I have too many fabrics lying around, waiting to be used!

Oh yes -- FQs and charms esp. but also jellys that have been marked down. Haven't purchased a layer cake yet - they aren't usually on sale!

Hi Patty, I am from KY also. I love having beautiful fabric where I can look at it a lot. I am trying to use what I have on projects instead of buying more. It's hard to do. I have been quilting just a few years, but I have quite a stash. Kitty

I started off collecting random fabrics so that I have a collection/variety on hand for scrap quilts. I also purchase some fabrics with a specific project in mind.

Cheers, K

I used to buy beautiful fabric and then couldn't bring myself to cut into it. Am working on the problem.... Now I have to dye the go together fabric for the old pieces, they are nowhere to be found..
Am trying to use the beautiful too small pieces by making smallish gifts.
Am a fabriholic, don't need a cure cause I don't want to stop buying beautiful fabric.

About 5 years ago, while living in an apartment from which I had to move, I held a "sale" from my fabric stash by putting a notice in a local quilt guild's newsletter. I pulled from my stash any I couldn't part with and hid it. The rest I arranged in huge baskets and on shelves/tables. I determinedly sold everything for $3 per yard (some cost me a few tears but I was ruthless with my clearing out). The 'buyers' called/emailed first to arrange a time to shop as a way for me to control the number of bodies in the house at one time. They all paid cash. I cut anything from 1/2 yd. up, no cutting fats. But some of the pieces I had were already only fat quarters or ¼ yd cuts, too.

I had little slips of paper I'd printed from the computer with columns of cut sizes: .25 yd, .33 yd., .375 yd., .5 yd., .625 yd., etc., etc. and I put a chit mark in the appropriate column as they 'bought' and I cut. Then it was easy to add up all the decimal sizes and come up with total yardage, then multiple that by $3 for the total they owed me.

I met some lovely ladies, had fun conversations, sold a ton of fabric I had not used for a decade, and made $1400!!

Of course, I had to do it all over again 3 years later as I spent the original $1400 on more fabric.
And I made another $1200!! (What I sold the second time was more of the 'old stuff', not newly bought, of course.)

I admit that I owned lots of yardage of individual fabrics because I kept tons when I closed my shop in 2000. But a large number of the prints were those I’d collected in ¼, ½, ¾, yards for years. Some had been used in more than one quilt over the years. I had many, many blenders and tonals useful in any quilt, and I believe that’s what made my ‘sale’ so successful.

Jan in VA

Who knew I had so much value hiding in my fabric closet! :thumbup:

The way I see it is....eventually those fabric prices is going to rise and now you already have your stashes so less $ to spend later, just go with the flow and pick a pattern and start now! Worry about the rest when a project calls ya and lo-behold there is your fabric waiting to be used! Making sense ?? LOL

tellow brick road is a terrific pattern to use co ordinating fat quarters have fun