WMUTeach

My two eents.......Chose one panel. Use your stash for fun borders. but make sure that it doesn't get wider than a width of fabric for the back unless you have enough yardage for a 40+ inch back and stitch it up. Then some easy, peasy quilting such a free style wavey line and you are almost home. Binding by machine and done! Oh, I know I made it sound so easy, but to me it sounds like you are getting "stuck in the weeds" of planning. Been there and I hate weeds!

Gemm

You do make it sound so easy, WMU, and I'm fairly sure that once I got started I could do it, but it's that first step... it's a doozy!

On the bright side, today I did take a step or two into the sewing room - I had some placemats that I was working on in the fall that had been put to the side during the busy holiday season. Some of them still needed to be quilted, so I decided to try to get at least one done. The one got done and that led to the other three also being finished! Woo hoo!

All of my placemats are stash-busting projects. While a few of them were actually finished last year, they weren't done in time for the donation deadline so I'm counting them as 2026 finishes. They will probably stay with me until the summer as the guild is planning a show and storage is at a premium, but they're ready to go when the call goes out! I am rounding my measurements up to half a yard per placemat (it's not a gross exaggeration, especially when you factor in the frankenbatting), so I'm happy to report 3.5 yards of stash have been meaningfully repurposed. :-)

Lena1952

Gemm, your fabric pile load is lessened already. Looks like your 2026 is off to a good start! I have used the “ I’ll just do one” approach several times and it seems to always leads to accomplishing more than I expected.

WMUTeach

Yeah,, Gemm, you have started your journey and did not purchase any additional fabric. Now, maybe one of those panels will start jumping up and down calling out "pick me! pick me!".

WMUTeach

I put about 5 yards of fabric to use yesterday. These are the most colorful large tropical prints I have ever seen. It was donated to me or more accurately I accepted a computer paper box of one/two yard cuts of the prints thinking surely I will use them. 5 years later they are still staring at me and no inspiration has happened. One of my volunteer groups makes heart pillows for after cancer use. (You tuck them under your arm to relieve pressure on the breast cancer incision site particularly lymph node removal sites.) Well, I have been donating my wild jungle/ tropical prints to this cause. So far about 30 heart shaped pillows, some counted in 2025 moratorium, and I cut another 16 yesterday.

Working my way through the box that is now about half full. I should have taken a photo but did not even think of taking a snap of a mountain of "wild" hearts. Maybe when we meet again next month.

Gemm

I "heart" your use of stash fabric to support such a great cause, WMU - I do hope you get around to taking a picture!

joe'smom

Thank you, Gemm, for leading us in another moratorium! Over the last year, I have given away a tremendous number of the stash 'kits' I was cutting over a period of about 5 years, and many finished tops (to a friend who distributes them to several quilting groups for finishing). I had, at the time, a mania to organize my stash into quilts, and also a subconscious sense that I would be slowing down in what I could achieve.

As I recently (and finally) decided to send quilts out for quilting (conceding that a quilt finished by someone else was better than a quilt never finished at all), it gave me a new perspective on what i liked well enough to turn into a quilt, when that represented a significant monetary investment. In giving so many kits and tops away, I've also realized I'm not nearly as emotionally invested in the quilts I put together from stash so as to use up stash, as I am in the quilts that start with an inspiration (other than using up stash). As time to time I go through the pictures of the work I've done, I'll realize -- 'I'm never going to finish that' (then it is put aside for my friend, who thinks I'm generous in what I give, while i think she's generous in what she's willing to take, LOL).

I did not do so well last year in resisting fabric, but Iceblossom shared a stash-limiting rule she follows that has really inspired me -- must immediately wash and fold every piece of fabric entering the house, rather than just dumping it somewhere to be dealt with later. This serves to bring fabric from the fantasy realm and into the factual universe where it demands an immediate investment of time and energy. Thank you, Iceblossom!

happylab

I have decided to join this year. My goals coincide with this thread. “To have more fabric in than out.” I plan to use my stash first and finally ( the most important). To complete several projects (which only have a few more steps to complete). Last year, I didn’t finish many quilts. Instead I went on a spending bing, buying kits and BOM, BOW, etc. So this year I will stop buying fabric and notions. I will follow along in free or near free BOW OR BOM, or QAL’s, where I use my own stash verses using buying fabric. And work on my BOM kits I already own. That’s my goals/plan and I’m going to keep to it. Now will some one send me a Get around to-it? LOL. 😂. Okay, seriously, I do plan to buy 1 more pre-cut kit in February and then I’m done buying fabric and stash time here I come.

Iceblossom

I know not everyone prewashes, but I do. It is well known that I don't enjoy the ironing part... so this switch I'm making to do the "work" as soon as I come home really makes me think twice about adding fabric to my purchases. Is so easy when you are there and have to stand in line anyway, or on line and have to pay for shipping anyway, to add lovely things to our (hopefully equally lovely) necessary things. But I've learned to think about oof! the physical weight of it, the steps in the house, to the laundry, to the ironing board, to the proper totes... sigh... I still have some "unorganized" fabric but it's getting better all the time.

I've been using up some of the small bits of fabric in this latest Bonnie Hunter project. Last year when my favorite shop closed down I bought some bolts of fabric (yikes! I forget now but it was something like $15 for whatever was left on the bolt) but I was rather selective in what I chose. I'm using one of those fabrics for a minor amount of fabric on the top of the quilt, but also for the back and binding.

And for Happylab, welcome to the group May I share this picture with you, a friend sent it to me in a care package.

WMUTeach

I was saved from shoppiig this morning. by......snow and blowing snow! It was my plan to go and purchase 1/3 yard of something needed to finish a project and then a backing for a UFO.There are closed roads and slow driving any a request from my dear brother to stay home. Oh, well, I will search through the stash again for something appropriate for the back, The 1/3 yard.....that is a requirement. But in the meantime, my no shopping in January is safe for a few more days.

Other projects await. Just short of two weeks to use up more fabric from our stash. Keep going my quilty friends.