I love my stash too much!
 

I have realized that I don't like using my stash. I picked all the pieces so carefully I just like looking at it. I'm afraid to use it. I have been making ten minute table runners and I have found myself purchasing fabric instead of searching my stash.

Make them into a quilt you can look at all the time on the wall or on a bed, instead of inside a drawer! Get over it, and then you can buy more!

I am the same. I rarely use anything from my stash. This year I forced myself to cut waaaaay back on purchasing fabric. I shopped from my stash. It feels good to use it once you get started. The empty places on the shelves are telling me to SHOP!

I hear you! I just keep telling myself that's what I bought it for. But sometimes I think that I have to find the perfect pattern that will do justice to that piece of fabric and that pattern just may not exist ;-)

If you don't use it, what is going to happen to it when you die?? I don't want my favorite fabrics to end up in some bin at a resale store marked at a price of pennies on the dollar. I want my favorite fabric to be cherished by someone in a quilt. I guess they could wrap you up in it when you die. I am making a quilt to be buried in. Just hope I can get it done it time. So many charities I have been working on lately taking precedence over mine. Maybe THAT will be my new year's resolution.

Use it
enjoy making things from it

When is the last time a stamp collected used their stamps? If just having is not a space or financial hardship, why not just have it?

That's what I have been saying for years. Some people collect coins, some stamps, we collect fabric. having said that, some of the others are right, if you use it you can enhoy it in a quilt and a good excuse to buy more.

Just remember the large piece of fabric may be beautiful, but lonely for other fabrics to play with. Don't neglect the needs of your fabric to play.

Piece that beautiful fabric together and it will be even more beautiful. Trust your fabric!

peace

Oh dear. Just because you cut into it doesn't mean you no longer have it. Baby steps...try using just one thing from your stash in a project and work up from there.

Something you might want to try (I've been thinking about doing this as well). If you have some quilting magazines, find a pattern that you like and go into your stash for the fabrics. Pretend you have no fabric shops nearby and no computer to order on line. After you have completed the quilt you can treat yourself by buying new fabric!

DH wants to know when I'm going to open a fabric shop. Time to cut!!

I'm also a fabric collector, but lately I've been choosing two pieces at a time from my stash to make a block (right now I'm making churn dash blocks for a scrappy quilt). That way I have the fabric to look at and soon I'll also have a quilt. ...... taking baby steps .....

Of course I'm still buying some fabrics for specific projects but I'm making a start. I'm also making blocks and mug rugs from my scraps collection that is overflowing a box.

think i am just selfish about my stash. mostly i make quilts for others and just don't think they deserve the beautiful stuff in my stash. ha ha! rarely make anything for me but intend to. even bigger laugh. really, some day i will.

know i need to get busy as i don't foresee the need for all that fabric after i am gone.

I wish it was just fabric that my room is full of. It seems I like anything that pertains to sewing so much I buy or collect it. My patterns are overflowing past the large storage cabinet I got to keep them in. The bookshelf is overflowing too. My thread drawers are full to the brim and buttons .... Well that is another story. I know during the winter when I don't want to forge out, I appreciate my stash. But, I really don't need any more inspiration fabric.

I say, have a party playing with it. There is more at the store!

I'm the same way. I hate to use any of my fabric because what if I need it later? Same with my scrapbooking supplies.

I got over that habit years ago by hanging onto fabric "because I loved it and wanted to use it for something special" for so long that I finally outgrew it. Then I had to use it in something not so special after all because I was no longer enchanted with it!! Now, as said before, I use my stash so I can view it outside the drawer!

Jan in VA

My DH said this same thing to me this morning. :D

My feelings, too. Still, there are some pieces that I just can't part with.

I understand. I like looking at it, I'm afraid to use it, AND


I like to FONDLE it.

That's my husband's term, when he can't find me he just figures I'm fondling!

Ahhhh! I truly understand you. I have some called Apple Cider Bears (or something like that). I bought it at least three years ago. Have only used a tiny bit. You are not alone.

I have to tell my husband to use the quilts I make him. I have to tell myself to use my fabric or someone else will when I "can't" anymore.

I kind of felt the same way but then a friend talked me into taking a Scrap Therapy class based on the book Cut the Scraps and I started with cutting the actual scraps that I've used in other quilts. I didn't really want to use them in a new quilt anyway. It was like visiting with old friends I hadn't seen for a long time and it was so fun to put them together with other fabrics in new and different ways. Now I love to go shopping in my stash because I love the surprises that will come out of there. And I'm sure no one else will appreciate all those fabrics like I do, so why leave them to someone else some day?

12 step program for stashers?

Oh not me, I do love the fabrics I picked out but I definitely use them. In fact, while searching for material I think I have I often find fabric I forgot I had. I am constantly searching thru and reorganizing my totes. When I find forgotten fabric I leave it out on the cutting table so I don't forget it again. I love going thru the stash but also love using it.

Where did you find a Scrap Therapy Class quiltingbuddy .... I need one of those.

Call it a collection and enjoy looking at it. As Ricky Timms says: Stamp collectors don't mail out their stamps. Coin collectors don't pay their bills with them. So why should we have to use up one scrap before its time? Of course there is that running out of space thing.....

When you use fabrics from your stash, consider it as cashing in your investments!!! It's a grand feeling. Enjoy!

Best friends was diagnosed with two cancers and now had two strokes. Reality check for me. If something happens to me no one in my family cares about my fab and quilty stuff. Decided NOT to buy fab in 2015. So I will be sewing quilts table runners mug rugs and such to use up my stash. I bought the fab cuz I liked it and will sew it up cuz I STILL like it.

I recently discovered that I like making purses, tote bags, etc. I started with making little ones for my granddaughter and enjoyed it so much I graduated to more complex purses and bags for myself. I am one of the worst at not using fabric I buy because it's too beautiful to cut into. This new discovery is slowly beginning to cure me. All the quilts I make I give away never to be seen again. But with the bags I get to carry them around with me and enjoy again and again!

I have lots of focus fabrics. I would see one that I loved so buy a yard or 2. There it sat. Now my goal is to only buy blenders. So far, so good. After Christmas projects are done, I am going to start using it in between times working on Bonnie Hunters mystery quilt. I saw a Frozen panel quilt kit from equilter today and almost bought to make for my DGD's 3rd birthday in January. stopped myself because have already bought fabric for a big girls bed for her.

I have this reaction, too, to certain fabric. Not that I don't want to use it, but that it has to used in the "perfect" way, the "perfect" pattern..... which I often can't decide upon. I get so hung up on it sometimes that I will use other fabric instead, because I can't make a decision about the favored fabric. All due to a little OCD, I know, and a huge waste of time! ;)

Maybe I'm naïve,but what is ten minute table runner? And where would I get the pattern?

So, I just asked where to get the pattern....but I Googled it and found it on the net!! It's the pattern I saw at a craft show and tried to figure out!! Thanks!!

That's called 'fondling' in my house!

Ok, I'm a stasher and a fondler. I'm going to take Terri D's advice and take baby steps and start using the fabric I love. I'm thinking the 10 minute table runners, I can make lots of them and change them weekly so I can see and enjoy what I made with my beautiful fabrics. I am going to make wine bags for Christmas gifts, I'll use some of my favorite fabrics on those too. I hope the recipient of the bottle of wine will like the wine bag. These are small projects to enable me to ease into using my stash. Maybe a quilt could be my new years resolution.

I know the feeling, but I too have tried to start shopping my stash and minimize my purchases, not always successfully.

I love to use my stash - and I love to share it. Most of my stash is done by theme. By this I mean, I have well over 200 Christmas fabrics, and over 100 Halloween fabrics, this does not include the Thanksgiving fabrics and I haven't bothered to count how many kids fabrics I have because then I may have to admit I have a problem and need an intervention. A friend that started sewing with me was making stocking for a new member of her family, she was making the one with the 2inch squares, she was amazed at my variety, and she needed so little of a variety. In exchange, she sewed the binding on a quilt for me.

Remember if you don't use your stash:

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Simple answer, you need a...........

stash to look at, and a stash to use!