crafty pat

I find one I love and will buy three to five yards and one yard fabrics to go with it. I buy one yard of a lot of solids to have around if needed and I use them often.

bearisgray

If I think it might be suitable for a backing - and the price is 'reasonable' or it's on sale or clearance - and the fabric is nice - 5 to 10 yards of it, if available

Charming

if I want to marry it, I buy whatever's on the bolt...[/QUOTE]

Rofl. That is cute but God knows then I am married to a LOT

gail-r

I did a marathon expenditure once, a small LQS in Tooele was going out of business and they carried top of the line fabrics, when they had their remaining fabric at 50% I bought $597. worth. But I ended up with enough fabric for several quilts. What I did was buy all of what they had in differnt lines, so I would have fabrics that match. I was a very fun and sad day since that was my very favorite store.

gail-r

Rofl. That is cute but God knows then I am married to a LOT[/QUOTE]

Now that is too funny, my first thought when I read your post was "she should live in Utah".

quilter2090

I usually buy 3-4 yards.

MamaO2011

I do this exact same thing. I have a LOT of FQ, and just about all my prints are 1 yard. Solids are usually 2 yards. If it is a REALLY good price on a neutral fabric, I might go 3 or 4 yards, but that's rare.

nygal

I started out buying tons of fat quarters. But as time passed when it came to using them they were mostly good for scrappy quilts or a paper piecing project or tote bags. All of which I rarely made.

Now if I see a fabric that I think is "interesting" I buy 1/2 yard. If I see one I "like" a lot I buy 1 or 1 1/2 yards of it. If I see a fabric that I "LOVE" I buy 3 yards. That way I am assured of being able to use them happily in a quilt.

Scissor Queen

I evaluate what I'm likely to use it for. If it's a great focal fabric and I'm likely to use it in blocks and the border of a queen size quilt I buy a minimum of 5 yards. For those fabrics that are more likely to be the blenders I generally get 2 yards. Since I tend to use several different fabrics of one color in a quilt I also buy tone on tones in fat quarters.

quiltsRfun

Gail, I'll bet I'm one of the few members on this board who knows the how to pronounce Tooele. LOL

Dray, you can see there are lots of different methods of building your stash. I think it's one of those areas of quilting where there are not rules. You just have to figure out what works best for you. Not much help, I know. But consider the comments above about your quilting style and color preferences and go from there.