Actually I got started thanks to a wonderful local lady who is also on the Board I believe. She put an ad on Freecycle that she had a trash bag full of scraps and I met her and she gave me two bags full actually. I started with that and sewed scrappy for awhile.
Try posting you needs to the Freecycle list in Boston and you may hit it lucky as well. You really don't need all the gadgets that we talk about on here. It sounds as if you're off to a good start.
BTW, I'm a Lynn native now living in Maine so we were almost neighbors at one time :-).