Oh, my gosh! I was long-winded!!! By the way, the quilt that is my avatar is made from my stash!

I'm with you all. I even keep the "unusable" scraps. I just made 4 kitty pillows for our no-kill cat shelter in West Linn. I have enough unusables to make at least 10 more and still have some old material I need to use up. The rest I am saving and will try to make a scrappy quilt or two - when I have time. I also have my sewing room in the lower part of our tri-level. I can just close the door and no one knows what is lurking there unless I want them to.

You go, girl! I love that attitude! People give my static about all my fabric, too, & I just say "When you start paying for it, then you get a say in it". That shuts'em up in a hurry! I mean, I say it in a kind of jokey way so they don't think I'm a complete psycho shrew, but they get the idea. As long as it doesn't "disturb" me or DH or the dog (& it doesn't), it ain't nobody's bid-ness but my own! Like my Mother used to say about meddling people "You tend to your plate & I'll tend to mine!!". Period.

You sound just like DH & I! He's "excited" about my quilting stuff & I'm "thrilled" over his guy stuff (bows, woodworking, his motorcycle, his telescopes, etc). It's nice that we both have our own interests & leave the other own alone re theirs.

We collect fabric and others collect "do-dads" that have to be dusted every week (?) or not! So what's the difference?

I have read several of the pages on this thread and now it's time for me to take GGS to mothers day out, but this makes me remember a funny (to me) story. I used to go to a sit-n-sew at a LQS and one of the ladies who made absolutly gorgeous quilts all out of the LQS fabric would throw her scraps into the waste basket beside her machine. I had watched her do this several times and one day she cut these strips from a queen size quilt, about 4" wide that were already sandwiched with warm and natural batting and a gorgeous backing, and then she dropped the strips into her wastebasket, I know she paid $9.99 per yard for the fabric. After lunch that day I went over and asked if she was throwing all that fabric in her trash can away and when she said yes I asked if she minded if I took it. She got a really strange look (disgusted) look on her face and said "why" and I said because it was beautiful and would go great on a quilt I was making at home. Her response was "well, if you want to take my trash home, I don't care." I felt a little like a homeless person as I gathered up her cast offs, but I did, and it did look beautiful on my quilt. Isn't great that we are all so different!

I get alot of fabric scraps from my sister (she does alot of sewing and mom and she also do quilts for charity). I get leftovers - cottons, polyester, fleece, you name it. If it wasn't for all the scraps donated to my collection I have also accumulated, I don't know how I would be surviving. I have been unemployed for over a year and if it weren't for having a stash I qould be going crazy (can't afford to buy much - just that little bit to finish a quilt). Yard sales have become my good friend for supplies also. People just don't see or think the way a quilter does.

Oh yes, I have been deep in the process of a project and the dining room table is covered. She says, "where do you eat dinner?" and "I just dont have time for hobbies" Really?? This is my pleasure and release and I sell what I make in craft fairs. That makes it more than a hobby. So I totally get your frustration. I also save every small peice of fabric I can get. :)

Those who don't quilt & have no desire too, just don't get it & never will, lol! Their loss, right! I tell people I am a quilter & absolutely love it. I really don't care what these types think, as they really are clueless, aren't they! I wonder too, if these kind have an hobbies, or something they love doing, besides cleaning house. I doubt it, or they might understand. If they don't get, don't bother to explain, it won't help, just keep quilting & enjoy!...

Good for you! I would have done this too, even if I didn't know what I would do with it all, lol!