It's hard for me to remember when I really started building my stash. The last few years before I moved to Nashville, I was living near two LQS, two Joanns, and one Hancocks. I never bought much fabric from Hancocks but bought alot from Joanns. Usually, I would wait for the 50% off red tag clearance. I would go in without projects in mind and just snap up yardage on quilt fabrics that I liked. I like scrappy traditional quilts so anything was useful. The LQS fabrics I would wait until sales or use discount cards (I belonged to BOMs so money was always being applied to the cards). I would go to the Fancy Gap Pottery in Hillsville and buy fabric. Over time, I acquired quite alot of stuff and the quality is from the best to okay. If I like it, the thread count doesn't matter as much to me. I'm not producing heirlooms as I don't have many familly members who care about homemade gifts. I have tried in the last three years to buy fabrics that have less saturated (aka bright) color...what might be called blenders. I use muslin and solid black alot in my quilts but I started to buy other fabrics to expand myself. Still have to force myself to buy yellows and tans as I find yellow too painfully overpowering and tan/brown just depresses me.