Collecting fabrics ...
 

I've been thinking of the different ways my SABLE (Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy) is accumulating. Here's what happens …

I often find fabric when I am searching for something totally different. I might be looking for batting, backing or binding fabric for my current project and find some fabric that loves me. Then I need to think about what I could use it for and how much I might need. Or I just buy an arbitrary amount (1/2 to 2 yards), and hope I think of something to use it for. Sometimes I can resist the urge to buy it right then until I have a specific project to use it for.

Sometimes I go to the bargain table and just for fun start putting fabrics together that I think would make a pretty quilt, and end up getting 1/2 to 1 yd. of each of the fabrics. I take them home and bundle them together for a future project. Then I occasionally end up using some of it for another project if it coordinates well.

When I go to quilt shops in my travels, I like to have a pattern with me that requires many different fabrics (like fat-quarter friendly patterns). Then I can pick out a fat quarter to add to that project collection.

Of course when I go to make a specific quilt and choose fabric for it, I always buy extra; so if I don't end up needing it for the quilt, it is added to my SABLE.

I don't go to garage sales. I have never found any good fabrics at our local Goodwill which I occasionally stroll through; and haven't been the beneficiary of friends' unwanted fabrics.


How does your SABLE amass?

I am a sucker for a sale LOL, and not afraid to buy fabric online so Crafttown Fabrics, Whittles, Hancock's of P, Bear Creek, Fabric Shack, and others see my name occasionally...

A few years back, I started spending money on fabric and precuts like crazy. My sewing room is hard to get around in it. I am making a table runner today and found a half yard bundle that was perfect...but I needed about ten inches cut off the ends of most of the fabrics and it made me sick to cut into it. I was thinking I could make a whole quilt with these instead. But it’s what looked good to me so I ironed the end of the fabric and cut. It didn’t hurt at all...especially when I saw how almost all of it was left.

I can still make a quilt. See, I love my fabric that is bundled every which way and it hurts to use it. I know it’s stupid and unhealthy, but I finally took the first step today. Most my fabric is getting out of date and needs to be used.

I amassed my stash by buying 4- 6Yd.s of any fabric I liked --- just in case I might need it.

I have used many, many yards for backings for the donation quilts I make for kids in foster care. The fronts are scrappies.

I got mine over the years mostly from finding bargains too good to pass up from LQS and other stores. Then after I retired, I volunteered at the local help center. Before long, I was put in charge of the crafts department, which included fabric and since the price was set by the thrift shop at 50 cents a yard, I really couldn't resist. Now I have such a ton (or tons) of stash, I feel extremely overwhelmed! Almost all I make now are baby and kid quilts for donations, but too much fabric is... well, too much.

Remnant bin mostly. Tuesday Morning and Missouri Star's daily deal too. I love to get a whole fabric line and that adds to the fat quarter collection.

It's funny, but I have an impressive fabric stash. I love to knit too, but I have practically no yarn stash. I wonder what that says about me?

When I first started quilting i would buy a couple of yards of each fabric. Fast forward 15 or so years and my tastes have changed a lot as well as the kind of quilts I make. I destashed much of that fabric and now buy fat quarters or half yards. I like controlled scrappy and tend to put 90+ prints in a lap size quilt. I have a local warehouse type fabric store where I can buy designer quilt fabric for $4/yard. I do find good fabric occasionally at local thrift stores. Recently bought 17 yards of Moda, Robert Kauffman, Riley Blake etc at Goodwill for $1.87/yard. Guess someone else was destashing. I like thrift store sheets for backing as well. My new fabric stash doesn't fill 1 bookshelf but I have a couple of hundred prints. My vintage sheet stash is a different story...

I've been sewing for more than 30 years, wearable art and quilting for the last 20 or so. I have a huge stash and am gradually using a lot of it up. Amazingly, my taste in fabrics hasn't changed that much. Possibly because I rarely buy what is considered the latest and greatest so I just keep chipping away at what I have. When I want to start a new project, I first look at what I have on hand and then buy whatever I don't have. I'm also making a strip quilt right now that has used up a lot of fabrics that I had that were left over from other projects.

While I do need to use up some of what I have, it's not something that I actively worry about. It'll happen. Or it won't and some other quilter will benefit after I'm gone.

I inherited some of it—Fabrics, flimsies, and UFO’s. When I quit garment sewing, gave away all of the apparel fabric. Still can see those Pendleton wools in my mind’s eye! But kept the cottons. So thrn I had all my aunt Fanny’s cottons, all my aunt Lydia’s cottons, and all my mother’s cottons. Then I bought a bunch—listening to the advice of “if one red fabric looks good in a quilt, 20 reds will look ever so much better. Fortunately, this means I mostly 1/2 yd cuts. Then a friend had to quit sewing and gifted me with 5 Rubbermaid totes of fabric. Gave about 150 yds away and still had to “double bunk” fabric on my storage closet shelves (two layers deep front to back of fabric on boards).

A number years later, the inherited UFO’s are down to one. The quilts in need of repair and/or total remakes are down to two. And there are places where I can see only one layer on a shelf. Not an entire shelf yet, but progress.

It is impossible for me to imagine how much space my stash would consume if we had an average American home instead of under 1000 sq ft. To bring anything new in, something else must go out the door or we would be in “Hoarders”. Makes you think twice. Or three times.

By buying nothing less than 1 metre everytime I see something. (For non metric a metre is 39" as opposed to 36" in a yard)