Gemm

I also have a wagon imbalance to report and a question. I was out and about and realized that the half cup of coffee I'd slurped down first thing this morning wasn't going to cut it so I knew where there was a Starbucks drive-thru on my way home and I had a gift card in my purse but there just happens to be a thrift store near there and...
Well, it could have been worse. And I learned to be wary - found four pieces of older WoF quilting fabric each between 3/4 and 1-1/2 yards, I'd say. What surprised me was the pricing and a labelling anomaly. I ended up walking out with three of them - a Cranston print, a Joan Kessler for Concord, and another fabric (I'm posting a question in a new thread about this third piece). Each of these were $3 or less. The fourth piece was about 1/2 yard of an allover multicoloured cat print priced at $12.99. That one's still on the rack. I don't pay retail prices for second-hand goods at thrift stores. :-P
I'm reasonably confident all of the fabrics are going to find a happy home in a project at some point, but I didn't think I was going to fall off the wagon so soon in the year! Tomorrow is another day, though. :-) Fresh start!

Iceblossom

We do have exemptions and we all have projects where we need just a little bit of this or that -- for the last couple of years that I've been a member of the thread, I've given myself a thrift store exemption. Honestly, it's pretty rare that you can get me to unclench my tight fists long enough to buy anything new and full price.

As I've continued in my fabric buying, I am buying less and less -- often when faced with some huge stashes unloaded on the thrift stores. Now instead of buying pretty much anything I saw I liked, I now have to give a judgement on how likely am I to use it in the next 5 years?

BTW, I love Concord and Cranston/VIP and even misspelled Daisy Kingdom. Having worked in advertising (and the hubby works for a company that makes fancy printed boxes for stuff), it's amazing how many errors and just plain typos slip buy. In the last year, hubby's company got a new client and the artwork they sent over had a typo in the company email that had missed notice until being sent outside to the printer.

I am still a sucker for cat prints I have an entire box of cat prints and I think they are all making the move with me. I need to think of some more ways to use them. I've done the McCalls pattern twice, once for me (it was my first ever block swap), one for my Mother-in-law who loved mine, and I cut out a third (or at least the cat part, no background) but that was claimed by a friend after being in the box for 10 years or so.

Here's pictures of those. MiL's is sideways, has a simpler border. Mine shows the pieced and couched cord border. Both quilts had the same paw-print meander in the middle. MiL's had a walking paw print quilted design where I had the pieced foot prints.

Gemm

I love those cat quilts!!! It's amazing how so many diverse fabrics (colours, styles, everything) can be brought together by having some sort of theme or idea to ground them. :-)

I know some crazy cat people who would like those in wall hangings, table runners, and quilts - all in the same room!

retiredteacher09

Iceblossom: Very pretty cat quilts. A friend was using this pattern last fall.

rryder

Cool tops, Connie.

Love the cat quilt, Iceblossom- esp. the couched border!

I'm in the process of piecing the Oct. Color block quilt, and just need to get the Sept. one bound. All the Color Block quilts have been from a combination of scraps and regular stash fabrics. Have only bought backing fabric for a couple of them and that was in 2021-- still no fabric purchases this year LOL

Rob

Crafty_Woodmouse

Hello everyone, and thanks for the inspiration! I have not long started quilting (about three years), and so far I only have one storage box of fabric (the kind you slide under the bed that stack). I am definitely guilty of buying gorgeous fabric and being too scared to use it

Once I've finished my current project with a set scheme I will dive into my stash! The biggest things I have that I'm waiting for the perfect pattern for are: a lot of Tilda 'Woodland', a Tilda 'windy days' jelly roll, a couple of metres of Moda 'Moody Bloom', and three metres of some jewel toned 'Uncorked' which is very cool (https://www.empressmills.co.uk/catal...lt/?q=uncorked).

Hoping to progress to a quilt with some kites and diamonds soon, so will *definitely* be heading to my stash first

I've yet to come across any quilting fabric in thrift stores here. I suppose any medium-weight cotton is OK?

Iceblossom

Crafty, I'm in the Seattle area and we have such bounty at our stores here, it is unbelievable. When I travel, I do visit thrift stores in other locations and typically do find fabric somewhere around Linens or Crafts, I also look for unquilted tops/UFOs. Sometimes they are bundled into big or small bags, sometimes single lengths of yardage. I've also found entire bolts. You just never know. The going price is going up, somewhere closer to $2-3/yard, and I'm seeing a lot more small bags for closer to $6 which used to be the price of a big bag, which is now closer to $10. I do find a lot of early 80s mid-level fabric like Concord and Cranston, I also find pretty current Moda, Benartex, and top line designers.

The thing is, you can't just go out and hope to find the perfect piece for a project. That can be hard enough with a real quilt store. You have to be willing to collect and I have already collected.... You have to learn how to tell fabric content, a common method is "burn testing". Here's a pretty good article on that:
https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/fabr...fibers-2821302

There can be a lot of good usable 100% cotton fabric in a man's shirt, especially the back, especially in the XXX side of things!

Gemm

Okay - I have another fabric purchase to report, but am also going to give myself a bit of an exemption in general when it comes to backings. I do have lots of fabric, but most of it is smaller pieces and so if I make a quilt that is bigger than a standard baby/lap quilt, I run into trouble.
For the last (string) quilt I made, I went through every piece of larger fabric I own and just couldn't find anything that really did it justice, and even though you don't see the backing 90% of the time, it has to work for me to be happy about the project as a whole. I went to the LQS to buy batting for it and decided to take a quick peek at what they had in widebacks (I'd already looked on their website and hadn't seen anything I liked), and lo and behold, there was a brand new (still in the plastic) wideback that works just beautifully. Of course, as the quilt is 64x80, I ended up buying a piece that will leave me with quite a lot of offcuts, but it's such a great fabric I'm sure I won't have any trouble making use of those extra bits in another project. Double (triple, if you count that I didn't forget the batting in my excitement over the wideback discovery) win!

petthefabric

Gemm; you stayed on the wagon. Buying for a particular project is one of the exemptions. I'd say you did great: going into a LQS and only buying what you need.

I'm considering doing the BH; Rhododendron Trail. Need aqua-big gap in my stash. Then again, finish at least 2 UFO before starting a new project.

Gemm

That's such a simple thing to say, but so much harder to do, isn't it?!? So many great projects and so much great fabric just waiting to be worked on and played with, and it's hard to go back and finish something when a new idea has fired up the imagination!