Ok...I had to go to the LQS because I had nothing in stash for backing on my current patriotic quilt. I have lots of bolts but not for anything that would match. Since this is for a vet reunion raffle, I wanted it to look nice.....and because I sew a lot of these quilts, I am constantly buying backing for them individually. Well......my LQS sold me entire bolt of fabric that can be used for most patriotic quilts for $3.50 a yard. She had 3 bolts of it and was trying to get rid of it. She would have sold it to me at $6.50/yard discounted if I didn't buy whole bolt. Snatched that baby up. It's perfect....Robert Kaufman...I am so jazzed. Whether I use red/white/blue or camo colors...this fabric will match well. That is all I bought except for some glue sticks for my appliqué supplies. Happy girl!

Great buy, Teen. Backing to complete a UFO doesn’t count, and getting a bolt for the price of 5 yds at full price—no one could rationally pass that up! And you know how it will be used. i don’t think that should count as a slip at all, at all.

Teen, I totally agree with Krisb.

Great score, Teen!! And as Krisb said, it doesn't count since it's to FINISH a project. Plus, at that price, it's just too good to pass up. Just think of all the finishes you can do with that bolt!!


AAARRRGGG!!!!!!
I have really been fighting the "want something new" urge!! It's morphed from just fabric/thread to anything remotely sewing related. :(

Fortunately for my various personal moratoriums (as well as my pocketbook), I've had to work late the past several days, so by the time I get off from work, various shops are closed... the LQS's... the thread/yarn store... the antiques store...

I made the mistake of looking on Facebook marketplace, and saw a treadle Singer for sale for $75... I nearly caved in and bought it... got home, and looked around and thought "where in the world would I put it?!?!?" So, PM'd the seller back and told her I really had nowhere to put it.
Truly. I do not have any space whatsoever.

oops. Can I claim the travel exemption? I was out at a retreat for the week, and my driving partner wanted to stop at a quilt shop or two on the way home. Stop 1 - 10 yards of flannel. But that's OK - it's for the guild quiltie program and I'll be reimbursed. It's not my stash.

Stop 2 - 1 yard of black & whites, to complete a quilt I started at retreat. I'm going to call it UFO prevention, because without this fabric I'd have 6 orphan blocks after my demo at guild next week. With the purchase, I'll have a lovely donation for Victoria's Quilts when I'm done.

Or, if not a "travel exemption", how about just what you said -"UFO Prevention Exemption"? LOL!!! :D

Well I went to my LQS (my favorite) and 6.5 yards of fabric followed me home. My 1st thought was for the fabric to be used as, a quillow. So I bought enough material to make this project. Once I got the fabric home, I noted it would really go well with my BOM Barn Blocks. So I may use some of it for that 1st. The if I have enough left over I will make a quillow. One of the fabrics have different quilt blocks about 2-3" in rows, in different shades of brown, cream and blue. The colors will go well. Another fabric is very small stripes of matching fabric color and would go great as binding. To think I only went to the LQS to p/u my Barn BOM kit. Now I need to make this block. Pics later tomorrow. I can't post pic on this laptop.

Thank-you everyone for answering my questions. IMHO, I could not really use this store as a trip store. There are no pot holes between here and there, and the roads are really good.

On the good side; I found 6.5 yards of fabric in my stash for starting my 365 day challenge. So I'm even so far this year. I plan to start this project sometime in February, (after BHMQ). I already printed out the entire quilt directions and block patterns and had the patterns bound into 2 books. I have now either bought or taken from stash all material to start this project.

Hey happylab, the only fabric I've gotten for my 365 project is the backing. I just downloaded the PDF's and read them off the laptop. I must get back to it, too. FYI, it's a WIP not a UFO:D

Agree WIP, I figure it will take me 2 years with all of my other projects.

No purchases for me since last post! I am still on the hunt for my Baltimore Album quilt project. I still only have 1 of 5 fabrics purchased plus background fabric. I've been surfing and I have 2 selected that may work. I'm anxious to get this project started. On my list of quilts to make, I have all the fabric needed for the next 3 quilts at least even backing so I'm good to go for awhile.

UFO Prevention...lol! Perfect!

FYI: Judy has posted her Mystery Train #18. It's scrappy and we can use up some of our stash/scraps. It's only a month long. Thought you might want to know. I haven't bought anything for 2 days now. Baby steps.

I have been reorganizing my spare bedroom so I can assemble my Kangaroo quilting table that has been sitting in boxes for almost a year and rediscovered enough quilt kits, unfinished BOMs, fabric and projects to keep me busy for years. Prior to retirement I purchased material with the idea that at some point my income would be reduced and I wouldn't have the money for quilting materials so I started stashing away material. In most cases I have the pattern, material for top, backing and binding that I still love so I don't plan on spending any money in 2018. I did receive a gift certificate for my LQS but I plan on using that for classes that I want to take. Was there on Friday for a Westalee ruler class and didn't purchase any fabric only a new pair of quilting gloves for the class.

Here's the link for it:

https://www.quiltingboard.com/blocks...e-t294354.html

Three Dog Night- really good planning for retirement. I'm sure you are super excited to jump in that pile of lovelies. Envious!

Ditto. I had the same thought process. Now I have 2 rooms of quilting and crocheting supplies, and material. Now if I just had the time and energy to do all of my projects. Have fun completing your projects. PS you may still by quilting items, but not just as much. I now only buy a few times a year.

Happylab and Oksewglad: Thanks for letting us know about Judy's Mystery Train Ride. I thought it started last week and couldn't find it. Now I know I was a week to early. Lol!

Connie

In conjunction with the RSC18 (color is light and medium blue this month), I just finished a 40 x 56 quilt made of light/blue HST's. Have the backing cut as well. Between the top and backing I used up over 4 yards of fabric from stash.

With my little house quilt, I used 3 yards of scrap, 1 1/2 yards in HST fabric, and 1 7/8 yard in borders and binding. That's about 6 1/2 yards of stash fabric

I've bought 1 yard of fabric so far; that makes me at a 9 1/2 yards since the beginning of the year.

Way to go, Oksewglad!

Connie

4 more days counting today and then into Feb. I can truthfully say that so far I have not bought any fabric! I am also working on a HST quilt. So far that is keeping me home and busy. So far all the fabric is coming out of my stash. I don't know if I have the right fabric for backing though so maybe a trip to my lqs or online. Well we shall see.
Oksewglad how did you figure out the yardage on your HST quilt? I used 10" squares for mine and the finished quilt will be full for the guest room.

Victim of a drive by scrap bag drop off! My cousin teaches quilting at a big box store and an LQS. One of the perks is she gets to take home the bag of discarded scraps at the end of the class. She doesn't make scrap quilts, but knows that one of my quilty friends frequents a shop that recycles cotton scraps. I'm the middle man. Of course I have to go thru the scraps to make sure there's nothing wonderful bound for the recycling bin! Don't know why, but there always seems to be someone who just got frustrated & dumped her (his?) whole project in the bin. This time it's a teal and grey tumbler. Enough pieces for a nice size baby quilt. There also was a whole pillowcase where the side seam was serged, but missed several places. Really cute snowman fabric. I'm claiming a gift exemption.

:Dshe cackles uproariously...For the blues I went through scraps and cut my 4 1/2" HST. The white I had been given a bunch of 9 1/2" squares. I knew I'd have enough so just cut from there.

I use the Easy Angle ruler to cut my HST's. If you want to figure yardage you need to count the number of triangles you can get from a width of fabric. In my case of 4 1/2" that would be about 16. Then count the number of HST's you will need; for me 140 for a 10 x 14 block setting. Divide the 140 into 16 to get the number of 4 1/2" strips you will need; 8.75 I rounded up to 9. Next multiply 9 x 4.5 to get # of inches needed--40.5 or 1 1/8 yards of fabric. There are charts out there that will tell you how many squares you can get in a FQ or a yard of fabric, but I always loose them and spend less time with a calculator than looking for a chart.

A gal came into the shop with this the other day and figured her backing needs...we compared it to hand calculations and it was spot on. I put it on my Kindle, but my GSon dropped it and shattered the screen so haven't used it for a year. I'm going to check with my other GSon to see if he can download it to my laptop.

http://www.robertkaufman.com/quilting-calculators/

I love that Kaufman app! I use it all the time on my phone, especially for square-in-a-square and setting triangles. Mostly I just do the math myself (I'm an engineer - math is fun!), but sometimes I feel lazy, or want to double check.

I like to do math, too. I made an Excel ss to calculate the diagonal of squares. I do refer to it often.

I decided my Irish Chain quilt needed a border. I don't have a lot of fabrics that are long enough for a border in my stash, so I was very tempted to go fabric shopping today. I really started to look forward to the thrill and excitement involved in browsing and auditioning fabrics.

Fortunately, I browsed thru my stash one more time. There was one fabric that would work, but I was saving it for a future quilt. I asked myself, am I really never going to be able to find another perfect dark green accent for some quilt I may or may not make someday?

I felt a little silly. I was able to resist the urge, and I'm off to do do some sewing instead of shopping!

Does this require monetary transactions? Because I did just pick up someone's destashing efforts and ended up adding to my own, but no money exchanged hands!

I just had to get out of the house Saturday, so drove to one of the area LQS's that I haven't been to in awhile. Enroute was a fairly large-ish GoodWill, so stopped there first. No fabric to scavenge, but there were a couple of sewing machines. But neither of them were really old enough to be interesting. Instead I bought 3 hard back books for $1.50 each.
Then on to the LQS! I did not buy a single thing, but I did drool most copiously over a multi-needle embroidery machine that had been traded in the day before. I wanted that really badly, and it was a steal of a deal... but... just cannot figure out how to justify spending $4500 on a "toy", even though I could conceivably start an embroidery business with it.

So, no fabric, no patterns, no thread and definitely no machine purchases. Yay me!! Just $4.50 + tax for three books.

However, next weekend is the sale at Foust... maybe I won't even go at all. After all, I don't need any fabric!!

I don't think this moratorium is intended to deprive us of our joy in our craft but to encourage us to not be wasteful and shop our stash first. Go to Foust's sale...maybe look at your stash first to shop for complimentary fabric. I may be out of line (and the rules) but if you find a fabric in your stash and match it up with something fresh and new, maybe you'd power through your stash more efficiently. That's what I am attempting to do once I complete the three quilts I have everything needed. Just thought I'd share my thoughts....

Teen, Well said.

Krista, those are all very nice. But the purple/olive—just love it! And I despise olive green.
This is my second January finish. It started as ORL, but then it changed.
P
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Beautiful, Krisb! That project was a labor of love. I followed along as you all made yours. I like the Browns and teal in yours. Good job and, I bet, a relief this baby is done.

I just used a 1/2 yard of stash fabric on a fabric box to put in a Sterlite plastic drawer for my triangle organization. Plan on making more, I'm so pleased with the custom size. More fabric out the door...I mean in the drawer!

Well I’m excited about my start for the new year. I finished making all the blocks for my project yesterday. Not only all from my stash but All Scraps! To me that’s a huge bonus. I have used 8 1/2 yards of scraps for this project and 3 yards of starch yardage for background. Great beginning. :)
of course the way scraps multiply it doesn’t seem like I diminished the scrap pile at all.

Our guild will have a booth at the local quilt show this coming February and I said I would make some things for them to have to sell.

I was actually at the LQS with items in my hand when I firmly put them down and walked out. I pulled everything I needed out of my stash.(except I will have to buy some white felt) I must say....I was feeling a little sassy as I walked to my car!
:D

Congratulations red stilettos that's quite an accomplishment to put down what's already in hand!

Rob

That was Stash yardage— not starch yardage.
And today I sorted the left over scraps and didn’t have near as many as it looked like with them all heaped on the table. Sorted, trimmed/ cut into the largest usable piece I could cut them into, cut some for a block I need to make for sewing group and put the rest away- sorted by color and put into an over the door shoe holder.

Congrats to everyone on their willpower however that it isn't me! I bought two fat quarter bundles for a total of 2 1/2 yards. Almost made it through January. So back up on the wagon.
Krisb lovely quilt.

Oh dear. I was meeting a friend for dinner tonight, and we met up in a quilt shop first, since we were a bit early for the restaurant. As I walked in I overheard the sales clerk telling a customer "we're have a 2 for 1 sale today". Uh oh. Yardage for 3 backings came home with me. Hopefully I still like them when put beside the actual quilt, since i was working from memory/photos on my phone. Assuming they all work out, that's 3 more UFOs ready to check off the list!

I just packed a box of 30s fabric and a couple of books to send to a friend. It is stash leaving the building, that's all that matters.

BTW, I have been struggling with the rainbow-colored pieces for the applique quilt. The thought of using the white from my stash was just too much. But then I came up with a name for the project and NOW I can work on it. The name is going to be "Unicorn F*rts in the Snow" I will have my friend embroider the label in rainbow colors. Can't wait. lol

Kristyn: I get small pieces donated to me from 2 volunteer groups and I figure it is a bonus to my stash. Lol!

I will be purchasing fabric in February but it will be to finish my year long Block of the Month through my LQS so that purchase won’t count. However, the LQS has some lovely baby panels and I am waiting for the arrival of a great nephew. I need to STAY strong! :)

When I figure scrap yardage, I just take the finished width and height, multiply them and divide by the square yard inches. Clear as mud, right?


Connie

Last night I got another box sewn. I'm loving the way these fit into my drawers...I can get three of them per drawer if I need to. This will be so easy to take out of drawer and use them as I work on specific projects. Another half yard out the door, plus the Peltex bits that have been taking up space. I have enough of the stiff stuff to make 2 more boxes then plan on trying Decor bond on both pieces for a product comparison.

I use those donated little scraps all the time. I just made three items for a fundraiser. The little heart one no bigger than a sheet of paper was made from French General fabrics and brought in over $200 for my Grands school.

Connie I like your figuring of yardage from scraps (FYI folks, there are 1440 sq inches in a yard of 40" wide fabric) Using that method, the little heart quilt sent an eighth of a yard out the door:D. The table runner 2/3 and the wall hanging another 2/3 yard. All in all almost a yard and a half a fabric. These 3 little items brought in $500+ for the school...not a bad return on my investment and time. I do have photos and at some time will get them downloaded.

Meanwhile...use it up!