My feelings and purpose for shopping from my stash too. Don't want my family to have to deal with my quilting "stuff" after I am gone. It took me a whole Covid-19 year to see a difference. Last year I was averaging one quilt, finished WIP or finished UFO every ten days or so. I can see a difference in my stash, now. But it took 12 months! Used most of my large cuts as backing but still have more fabric than what will fit in my double closet. That is my goal for this year. Get it all in one closet. Finger crossed.

Hint: I often would start with a backing fabric and design my quilt around that. I know, it is backwards, but that way I knew I would not have to shop for the largest piece of fabric and used my own collection. Worked for me.

WMIUTeach I think your method is very smart!And have started to work that way too. I think of all the kids' quilts that are 45-50" wide quilts that need a wider backing than the average wof selvage. Sometimes it just means a border is a bit narrower than planned.

Baby quilt and pieced back...ALL STASH. still needs to be quilted. I have run out of batting!

Best Part: that *I am Boss!* Feeling.

Backstory: my cousin is pregnant with a girl. I don't have alot of baby fabrics because I don't have alot babies. Also a small quilt for a small human can become a couch quilt later - unless of course you have dancing elephants. I also *hate* pink. I had this piece with the baby animals that came with a "buy it all"! purchase. But its coordinating fabrics include that soft blue. Uh-oh...am I going to fall afoul of the gender police? Waffle waffle waffle. Finally I ask other cousin and they give blessings to go for it.

Whole thing done in 2 days.

Yep. I am Boss.

30 days in to the new year and I have not even looked at fabric stores on line and have not stepped into JAF or a LQS. I am so proud of myself. I did discover some fabric still in the package that I bought more than a year ago. I haven't put it away yet just as a reminder of what happens when I buy fabric without a specific intention. This forum is going to keep me in line this year again and I will continue to post from time to time just to stay focused.

Rff1010, if the blue should be a problem, they can use the back as the front, because that is an extremely attractive quilt back! Way to go!

A couple months ago I did the comic board thing and then sorted my "not quite fat quarters and larger than a charm" fabric by color. Bought clear shoe boxes at walmart...and it all looks so nice. So today needed a pop of color for this HSTs and I had so much fun shopping my shoe boxes, in my jammies, with brownie bite and coffee. Found just what I was looking for. Must say, I feel so smug...lol.

I did something similar at the start of the pandemic. Agreed! Makes using the stash much easier.

Rff1010: Very nice! Super that it was all stash too!

WMUTeach and oksewglad: That’s a great idea to find a back first.

The church quilting ladies have been meeting and one of them emailed me and said there is a ‘Connie’ pile again. Wahoo! Just what I need: more scraps! ❤️ My church quilting friends.

On another note, do any of you buy batting by the roll? Prices have skyrocketed and the church group needs batting. I’m the person who finds it for the group. I do have some rolls at home that I will give them but it won’t take long for them to go through them because they are smaller rolls than normal. We will have a $250 grant so that helps.

rff1010....adorable baby quilt. Excellent use of stash. The back looks great, too!

Connie...yes, I buy batting by the roll. I purchased a roll of Warm & White in November for $200 on Amazon. The Warm company had a sale in November so I went for it. Not sure which brand your group needs but Joann’s started carrying this brand again for curbside pick-up only (no delivery like they use to do)...coupons help save bunches.

Rf1010| great colors in the baby quilt!

Julienm1- I did the same with sorting by color a few years ago and it made my life a lot easier when shopping my stash. It also makes it easy to see what I’m running low on and now When I go to the LQS I carry a list of things that I need to restock. Makes my buying much more mindful and I have gotten my stash to a size where it’s small enough to fit my available storage but large enough that I can almost always find something that will work for whatever quilt I want to make. I also sort my scraps by color and go to my scrap drawers first if I’m looking to add a pop of color to a quilt, or want to find the perfect color for a binding. Win-win.

Rob