Belfrybat

Hello, folks. I've been gone a long time and just came back on the board and read the last 12 pages of this thread. I joined this challenge but then disappeared for several months for personal reasons not related to this board. I must say I failed terribly at the moratorium this year. I used up around 150 yards of stash fabric in prayer quilts but purchased a 200 yard blender assortment from Marshall's Dry Goods. Only $1.60 a yard, but still..... sheesh! Plus some other unnecessary purchases from JoAnns on sale -- probably 30 yards. I am jumping back on the bandwagon and will commit to next year's challenge when it is posted.

It has been great reading the posts and seeing the triumphs and falls of so many of you. But the important thing to me in this thread is we try. We fail, pick ourselves up and keep going. Thanks for the inspiration.

grann of 6

Welcome "home", Belfrybat. So glad to have you back.

I am doing some quilting for my friend who "pays me in fabric." Last time she was here a couple weeks ago she was looking for backing for a top she just made, of KT fabrics. Lo and behold, I had enough of two of the fabrics for a border and the backing. So there goes about 5 yards of stash. I am so happy to "share the wealth". She hasn't formally joined the moratorium, but is working hard to use her stash.... and mine.

Iceblossom

Welcome back people who are checking in and those looking to join. And stay strong, my Fabric Moratoriums because we are going to have a month or two of sales that will try our souls and resolutions (as well as the pocket books of those that fall)!

I have given myself an exemption for thrift store fabrics which I shall keep into the next year but I'm getting fussier and fussier about what I pick up. I think I did very good this year in not buying new fabric and bought less thrift fabric than I could have (I think that it helps that I do admit to what I buy here), will have to lay in a couple yards of solid black and white to have on hand. Might have to get some muslin too...

I already did the first of my metallic projects (Scrap Metal) and I have pieces pulled out to work with the modern cat/Asian/black project that will someday be made, and I found someone who would love a couple of pieces of the metallics I have... but I still have another quilt to make out of what I have left and no ideas yet. Then I have at least 2 Civil War quilts coming from stash, one is already planned the other is still unknown.

I'm still considering my Barn/Harvest Quilt as on-going, it's otherwise known as "make those darn paper pieced blocks already" and when it is pieced, I have a whole box of fabric that I will consider surplus. I have fabrics collected for one of my "quilt of the month" projects, which is January and will be a lone star sampler with 9 stars made to look more like snowflakes. That also has metallic fabrics in it and so should be done before I send off the left-overs from the other projects. I also have fabrics collected for a string Christmas quilt, but I don't think that's on the list to be made yet. I no longer buy Christmas fabrics and have already given away an entire box just keeping some that were very true red/green/white so that box is there on a corner where I see it and I tell it "some day". A couple of years ago some ladies were making stockings for the Forgotten Children's Fund and I gave them more fabric than they thought they'd get from that ad on Craig's list.

The "potential" projects box has all sorts of fun things to work with and then there is the rest of the stash... I have a box of striped fabrics and might pull out something from there to work with, been thinking of the Lover's Knot sort of thing where you sew strips together and then slice them as triangles, you put the triangles together as a miter (so fun with stripes) and then arrange the blocks so they intersect. I think Eleanor Burns among others has a book on it.

This year I'm going to be working on purging out non-fabric things I've kept but nobody wants, like I'm allergic to down and my son is Vegan... so time to get rid of those sleeping bags. My goal is to clear out the closet in the sewing room so that I can put my fabric in there. In the last 10 years I will have gone from a room full of fabric to a closet stuffed full -- but I think that's a major improvement. If I had more space I'd have more fabric but right now I feel that I have plenty of fabric and I want the space more.

Judith1005

Iceblossom, I wonder if you would be interested in this fabric. I have already used it for several backings and wish to never use it again. It is mostly large pieces, some yardage. It is a metallic gold on cream background.



I'll send it to you for free if you want it. Just pm me.

Iceblossom

Heehee... no but when I get ready to send out my box of metallic scraps if you still have it we could send it out as a consolation prize.

This is what happens at my Tuesday group, pretty much every week someone brings me something and tells me to "put it in that box of yours", but I guess it is said and certainly meant much nicer than that

Grrr... and now you've got me thinking because I know I got some gold toned fabric in with the snowflake blue and white that isn't going to be used. Oh, the fabric temptations are strong within me, lol I'll let you know if I can't resist.

retiredteacher09

I love reading this thread. Like others have said, it makes us more mindful of purchases.

I started to keep track of my purchased fabric but only got a few months into the year. Although, I haven’t purchased much and almost all was for projects, I did overbuy baby/kid fabric. At least, I will have enough fabric to start on gifts for my first grandchild due in February.

Over the past few months, 3 people have given me orphan blocks so that added around 30 to my stash. On Thursday, I was at a BOM class at the LQS and a person told me she started a big box of fabric for me and some is yardage. I will get that when she has it full. Then yesterday, I went back to the LQS for open sew and an employee told me there were 4 bags under the table for me. I looked at both employees and was told a lady came in the store and asked if they knew of someone that made charity quilts. She was obviously told yes and that I would be there on Friday. Lol! Time to start sorting through the kitchen-sized garbage bags. We did glance in last night and went through the 50 or so patterns. A few stayed with people at open sew.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]620095[/ATTACH]

grann of 6

Oh, the gears that grind here on the Moratorium. While I am quilting my friend's quilt I am also sewing together the Bluprint star blocks, have about 15 to go.... but the mind wanders when not properly challenged. Another quilty friend gave me a pattern she has made a few times, uses large scale prints as the focal with coordinating fabrics to make simple blocks with sashing between. I ran down to the stash and found something perfect, morning glories with hummingbirds, white background with teals, various shades of pinks, and some greens, even found blenders in the stash that will work, and even some dark green to use as the sashing instead of black. I think I probably have several other large prints that will work too. So more charity quilts are on the horizon, can be whipped up in no time. And the floral shelf may get reduced a bit, possibly a lot.

Iceblossom

Retired Teacher, one of the things I have basically kitted up are alphabet quilts for donation and is a great use for odd bits of novelty fabrics. Simply cut 8.5" (raw, 8" finished block). You need 4 setting corners and 26 fabrics representing each letter of the alphabet and a border -- like that Alphabet/School Theme peaking out of the top. No! I don't want it, just a suggestion. A simple 8" finished block is 5 across for 40" (works well with width of fabric). After the quilt is assembled, I quilt down a big block capital letter so A is for Apple, B is for Bear, etc. X is hard but there is often X's and O's fabric around Valentine and I've even seen xylophones!

In this case, I made this for my friend Suzan who was retiring after many years as primarily an English teacher. She loves star fabrics and it is a snowball block in addition to being SuperSuz. For the corner blocks I used realistic books, I would normally use C for Cats but she isn't a cat person so used Crayons. The Valentine fabric has a "For Teacher" valentine prominently featured, couple other little things like Hummingbirds and Roses I wouldn't maybe use for a kid's project.

PamelaOry

I’m working on the fussiest little Christmas table runner...this darn thing, the pattern directions are just horrible. I’m too far into it to quit but hubby and I have had to modify more than once to get the pieces to fit. I’m determined to get it done in time to start the Bonnie Hunter mystery next week, then the fabric will start flowing from stash again.

in the mean time the backing for this nasty little thing will come from stash so at least there is that.

retiredteacher09

Iceblossom: Thanks for the great suggestion and the picture. Another reason I love this thread so much-people helping people with ideas.

grannof6: I understand the mind wandering.

PamelaOry: Frustrating when the patterns aren’t clear.

Befrybat: Welcome back!

Whew! Other than a quick time out for lunch, it took me the majority of a college football game to sort through it all. Now I really should put the fabric in the correct boxes/bins/etc before I start the next bag later today.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]620105[/ATTACH]All of it is quality fabric and various sizes.