Stocking up on fabric... and a photography tip
 

I am a beginning quilter with limited resources, so my stash is not very big (yet?). Looking at it lately, I especially figured that I was really missing solids! So I went (online) shopping and bought a bunch of coloured bed sheet fabrics :). They turned out to actually be better quality than I expected, and only the top one's colour is not quite what the online picture suggested. Never mind! As my stash is almost entirely autumn coloured, so are my latest babies:

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BTW: If anyone is interested, I'd like to share what I discovered when taking the picture of my new stash additions. I was not very pleased with the first few pics I took - both with and without flash, the colours just didn't look as in reality. However, when taking a closer look at the menu of my camera, I found a setting called "white balance". It was set on automatic, but playing around with it a little allowed me to take a picture that I would say brings out the colours pretty much as they look in reality! But maybe you're all experienced photographers and knew that long ago... I just discovered it today although I own this camera since a couple of years :o

Very pretty colors. Good luck with them. BrendaK

I absoluteyl looove solids! Those are some great colours you got there! Have fun playin around with them! :D

nice stack of solids

well you are getting the hang of it...stash

These are beautiful. Where did you find them?

I live in China, so I bought them online on Taobao which is the Chinese Ebay equivalent and part of Alibaba - the world's biggest online shopping network (bigger than Amazon and Ebay combined!). Sorry, there won't be much use in sharing the link to the shop as Taobao is Chinese only and the shops won't ship abroad... I bought the fabric from a bedding shop as this is much cheaper for me to get cotton fabric than buying the imported quilting fabrics (also available on Taobao) that cost more than what one pays in the US! This is the first time for me to buy such fabric online. In the past, I went to the local bedding tailors and bought their scraps. However, they don't have nice solids where I live but only quite colourful and sometimes hilariously designed ones... (works fine to fuzzy cut, though!) So I'm very happy with the colours and the quality I got at a very reasonable price! (approximately 15 USD for the whole stash - 8 pieces @ 2.5m x 50cm)

Those really are pretty colors. :)
It's interesting to hear about your shopping limitations and solutions; it varies all over the world.

Have you googled "Amish quilt designs"? Lots of photos of quilts with solids.

Not a criticism of you, but a 'help' (hopefully!)....."fuzzy" is spelled F-U-S-S-Y cutting. (It actually means to be particularly precise or or overly detailed or exacting.)

Jan in VA

Thanks for pointing that out! I'm not very familiar with quilting terms (but continually learning!), so I somehow must have picked up that one wrong! But even as a non-native English speaker, I do realise that there is quite a difference between "fuzzy" and "fussy"... :o

Nice picture and thanks for the hint about the white balance on the camera. I also realized even though I have been quilting for ages, I have no solids in my stash. I guess I need to collect some.

You are very clever and resourceful! I love your stash of solids; the colors are great!

I too love the colors of autumn . Your solid colors are going to make beautiful quilts.

Beautiful colors.

Love the colours!! and thanks so much for the photo hint. I've often wondered how to adjust to make the picture more realistic! good luck on your next project.

Very resourceful way to build a stash. I look forward to seeing your projects using these fabrics.

And thank you for the photography tip!

I also must compliment you on your your wonderful English. I know plenty of Americans who don't write as well.

Darren

Great colors.

Those are great solid colors to add to your stash

Good choice of colors!

The only site I could find that seemed to apply wanted you to buy 1500 meters, more or less. Sorry, that is fine for a store but not for my poor little sewing room. Please correct me if I have found the wrong site. Thank you.

Beautiful color selection... Like to see what the print choices will be with the plains.. On the next project.

Sometimes a solid is exactly what a design needs to balance all the active prints. Great picture and thanks for the photography tip.

Great idea. I've ordered thru the Alibaba site before and was not please with the fabrics. My daughter who also lives in Hong Kong says there are alot of shops around which are wholesale from the manufactures. But you have to watch for the quality.

Yummy colors!

You were looking at Alibaba? Yes, you're right, the English sites are all selling bulk for export to businesses. There's a "Chinese only" part of the network, Taobao, which is a little like Ebay where one can buy small amounts - but only within China! So as I said, this does not work for all you North Americans :( But you have plenty of internet shopping, too, that isn't easily accessible for me because of the horrendous overseas postage fees to Asia! :)

We are all spoiled with all the choices we have here in the US. When I visited Europe I didn't find stores that exclusively sold quilting fabrics. I'm sure there are some but my visit was limited. So, I'm pleased that you have found a source for your hobby that works for you. And your choices are lovely, I might add.

Love the fall colors. Just a tip, I buy a lot of sheet sets from thrift shops. I look for king sets and I have never paid more then $3.00 for the whole set including pillow cases. So far all of them have been in great shape.

Love your color selections!

Beautiful colors. Happy quilting.

I don't have much in the way of solids, especially bright colors. I know there is black and navy blue but I giess my stash could use an infusion of solids.

I use sheets for backing, but using them to piece sounds like a good idea.

I love the colors you selected and learning about how our overseas quilters cope. What I find most interesting is that in the US we have such a selection and so much cheaper for fabric then many overseas quilters. But most fabric is now milled in Asia. Much in China and Japan as well as India, Taiwan and of course the oh so wonderful batiks from Indonesia. You would think our quilting friends in Asia would really be able to find the bargains on fabric as it does not have to ship from so far away. But it appears all the manufacturers bring the finished product here to North America and very little is available for the Asian market. You found a very good solution and your solids are beautiful. I hope you share pictures of what you make with that wonderful assortment.