You rock! Go girl!

SusieQOH: Way to go!

LOL... good idea... I wonder if they’ll let me just cut a narrow strip off a bolt once in awhile....lol..

I am still widdling away at my precuts... I gave one jelly roll away since I never really like the fabric and colors. It has sparkly crap on it, which I dislike, too...so off it went to someone who loved it. Not even sure where I got it. I have a 5” stack of 1930’s that I’m making things with for gifts and whatnot. Still much to go, though.

Welcome, Susie!! We got your back!

YAH! Finally!! You are off and running now! So happy for you!

I made five quilt backs last night and took them to the long armer this morning. My stash looks just as bug as it did before I made the backs. I think it is multiplying.

With the completion of my scrap blocks, I searched stash for completion. The color way is going a different direction, but I like it. Found in stash enough for 1. Setting squares and side triangles (a bubble gum pinkish +2 yards); 2. First border (navy 2/3yd); 3. Second border (another dark pink 3/4 yd); and 4. Outer border and binding ( a navy KT floral that ties the squares and borders together 2 yds.) I am stoked! Can't wait to get at it!

Some encouragement. It took a couple years until I realized the shelves weren't so tight. Then the odd stacks would fit in their rightful places and it started taking on the look of overwhelming but manageable. Now, a few shelves are empty and need to make purchases occasionally to complete a project. My goal is to leave very little for DD to discard when I'm gone or less for her to move if we must have help to move from this house (the next one will be a big downsize). I purchased all that fabric because I liked it and most of it I still do. So I want to enjoy the eye candy and get use from the $$$ spent.

Teen, froggy, and oksewglad: We can reduce by giving away or using it up. Keep up the great work!

I came to a standstill this week as far as using up much fabric. Let’s just say, the first quilt I’m making for my grandson’s first birthday next week has given me fits. I saw a design that I liked for the Susybee panel that I purchased in 2019 for him and drew it out, graphed it out, etc, but made calculation mistakes. 😢. Lots of unstitching but certainly is a learning experience. At least, our get together for him got changed to the 7th instead of this Sunday. I will get this done! 👍

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

rff1010, Don't worry about the pink/blue thing. I know it lurks around in our brain but it is all just silliness. Make and gift a quilt that this fun, interesting for you to construct and uses what you have on hand. I have used some juvenile prints in yellow and gray, (Bunnies by the Bay) reproduction prints and just about anything I have. Not one has been returned because it wasn't pink or blue.https://cdn.quiltingboard.com/images/smilies/smile.png In fact most moms, when asked, will say any color but NOT pink or blue. https://cdn.quiltingboard.com/images/smilies/wink.png Sew on and bless the little one with a quilt of their own.

Rff1010 great lil’ quilt using your stash.

Like Teen, I purchased a roll of batting on sale just before Christmas. I wonder if you reach out to the batting company directly to see if they offer any discounts for charity groups...

Teen and jmoore: Thank you for the information. We try to go with polyester because it has been cheapest. The strange thing about JoAnns is we can’t get the Visa debit card from the grant to work at the store or online. It’s so frustrating because every other place takes it easily. We will keep trying though,

One month down... I am still working through scraps & small yardage to be cut replacing the strips and other cuts used in quilts last year. No purchases and don't have any plans to buy anything.

Fave LQS having 30% sale and I need to match some tops to back. So making a list..... We'll see.
Finished a top,binding on another Q and quilting on a third.

We have one store in town (Ace Hardware) that our debit card doesn’t work. She told me the reason is because their “merchant” account (for bank card machine) was set up to not accept debit cards that do not have a “charge” option. We had the bank remove the “charge” feature and just set our card up as a debit only. We didn’t want another CC option. Though my debit card works at Joann’s so that may not be why. Just thought I’d share what I discovered with Ace.

A question for the more experienced quilter's in the group....

I have alot (1 gallon ziploc) of flannel scraps from backings trimmings. Can they be put together for a scrap back? Or front? Most of the pieces are 3-5" wide but 40 -80" long. Suggestions welcome.

I bought a backing piece of fabric for future backing and background fabric. At least I hope I can use it for these projects. I found several QAL’s and BOM and BOW patterns on the internet. So I will be using my stash over this year to make some of my projects.

Teen: Interesting to the debit card at Ace. Could be why the grant card doesn’t work at JoAnn’s.

Rff1010: I would think the flannel strips would work for a backing. I have a flannel sheet inside a 50 year old quilt. 🤷‍♀️

I took batting rolls to my church quilters today and came home with 2 kitchen-sized garbage bags full of fabrics. Oops! I think one of the bag contents are unusable for quilts. It happens sometimes that I end up with a bag like that by mistake. The other bag will get sorted when I’m done with my grandson’s quilt. He’s 1 today!

I stepped off the wagon last night. My grandson graduates from high school this year so I thought about a quilt for him. He's very into Dungeons & Dragons & Magick the Gathering role playing games, so I looked for fabric that will fit. I found some dragon panels & bought those. So far I've passed on fabric with the multi-sided dice used in his games because it's $18.50/ yd, which seems high to me. This Sat is also K's birthday so I bought a panel for her. I'm stepping back up on the wagon, & all of the new fabrics will be used by May.

Hey y'all, I just posted a picture of my finished Color block quilt for January in the Pictures forum-go take a look when you get a chance. It's all from scraps including the batting, backing and binding. Based on Debbie Brown's January quilt, I added some squares in the borders and did a different quilting style since I wanted to use It to practice my ruler work. Now to decide what my color scheme will be for the February QAL. Great scrap buster! Now to decide what colors I want to use for her Feb. QAL.

Rob

I see nothing wrong with purchases for a specific project. The idea is all purchases should be "stash neutral" not adding to our collection. Nothing "just because". But if you made purchases for a specific project...that's valid in my eyes. Shop the stash first...but sometimes you need to go to a different store.

Conchella; that's not stepping off the wagon. That's thoughtout purchase.
Rob; loved the quilt.

Rff1010--I'm hoping our church group can get to making some fidget quilts and I have heard that flannel works great as a backing for them as they stay on the a lap better than plain cotton so I'm saving those wider flannel strips to be used as pieced backings for the fidget quilts.

Connie--Ugh nothing like hauling fabric home and then having to rehome it!

This weekend I acquired the t-shirts for 2 more quilts and was able to plan layouts and determine how much fabric I will need. In stash is a nice piece to use for one of the quilts along with the red I bought for our GSon's quilt (I finished the small amount on the bolt) So will just need to get a solid black for the outer border and binding. The second quilt, I'm not sure yet if I have stash fabric for.

This afternoon I plan to set my 6" stars with stash setting..off to the design wall, I'm supposed to work on Friday, but may be forced to stay home if the wind picks up and blows Thursday's snow around...also temps could be 0 and below...brrr.

Conchalea....a total pass on the purchase. Special occasion and a novelty fabric buy. You are good!

Rob...well done on quilt & quilting! Proud of you for finishing what you started...yah!

oksewglad....you’ve got your Super Bowl weekend all ready to go! Good luck!

I picked this quilt up from the LA’er last week...all done! This was a FQ bundle (maybe 4 left give or take, which I’ve already whacked into) I’ve had for over a year and about 6 1/2 yards from stash for backing, binding, and borders. I love this quilt so I put it on the back of my sofa....this is a keeper.

Rob: Congratulations on finishing your Color Block quilt! I like the colors and the added squares. I learned something new today: How to find the Picture section. Lol!

Teen: I agree that’s a keeper.

My Color Block quilt was set aside by a couple of my church quilting group friends as a possible one to give to Salvation Army to celebrate hitting another 1000. If our leader doesn’t already have one set aside, it would hang in the office area of Salvation Army.

Love your FQ quilt, Teen. Lots of different blocks made and techniques utilized.

RetTeach...congratulations on the possible quilt on exhibition!

No school for the Grands tomorrow so they will be down in the morning. I hope to get a second opinion on the layout of my star blocks. They have good eyes for color and placement so I take their advice seriously.

After searching my shelves, decided I just didn't have it. Purchased fabric for 2 backs today.

That’s gorgeous, Teen- I’d keep it too!

Rob

Connie-great news on the potential exhibiting of your colorblock quilt!

Rob