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Old 12-06-2012, 12:16 PM
  #21  
Jan in VA
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Piedmont Virginia in the Foothills of the Blue Ridge Mtns.
Posts: 8,562
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Well, I can honestly say I am NOT a fabric bigamist (or polygamist as the case may be), but I have been "friended" by more fabrics than I have room on my "page" for!

When I began quilting 30-some years ago, I chose to 3/4 - 1 yard cuts of lots of fabrics that would work together. I never buy "theme" prints and I rarely buy very large prints. That's not to say I don't/won't use them; they are just not my usual fabric purchase or preference.

A large percentage of what I buy is blenders/reads-as-solids/tone-on-tone/low-contrast small prints. I prefer prints with "movement" in the design.

This allows me to pull from my stash almost exclusively for "go-withs" if I find a fabric I want to get engaged to.....(though I have found over the years that most of these relationships do not last long )

My stash now has hundreds of fabrics in small amounts less than 1 yard. I make quilt after quilt from just my stash, not all scrappy either. If I don't have enough of a particular fabric, I consider that a design opportunity -- why use just one red fabric in a quilt when 7 different ones will make it even 'richer'?! I enjoy 2 color quilts, say blue and white, but I'll make it with 16 blues and 10 whites, and feel the "look" is more appealing and rich.

Every once in a while I find that I've been pulling a lot from one color stack of fabrics and I'm getting low on reds, for example. I go out looking for sales on red fabrics and buy what they will let me....one yard if I have to, less if I can. In the past 3-4 years we have had a lack of good, pretty yellows on the market; that's a color family I will need to buy for soon for my collection.

Jan in VA
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