What fun, WMUTeach! When I did my first purge of fabric I found I had two boxes of Christmas fabric. I kept out the true red/white/green and sent the rest of the box to the Forgotten Children's Fund to make stockings. LOL, they did not see me coming when they ran their Craig's List ad but I kept the group very busy indeed.
Sigh. Been having all sorts of problems with Aunt Debbie's quilt. The background fabric said 43" width, I needed 42, but it only had 40" usable, those darn big selvedges and then about a half inch from them, those little "pookie" holes in the fabric. So, instead of getting 4 solid squares, I can only get 3 across. Even if I piece what I have, I'm still short. And of course -- it's trendy seasonal fabric and now discontinued. After much searching I was able to find someone with yardage and I bought the 2 yards they had. It's almost the same price as if I had bought 6 fat quarters (because they would still be narrow I could only count on one 10.5 square per FQ!! Is ok, looks like the binding will be made with the remaining floral.
And then just this morning, I was cutting the solid blue fabric. Now, I'm sure they gave me straight cuts from the bolt (each side was 36" after all), but on the grain it was severely warped and trimming it to grain meant I lost two full strips, one on either side -- the yard I bought was again, 2 inches more than I needed until reality hit. I didn't have the quilt drafted when I ordered either, I debated whether or not to buy more at the time... as I say, I like it when I have half a yard too much more than 2" too short...
That's ok, is a Kona and now I know (University of Michigan Blue = Kona Navy, yellow is Bright Yellow) I can get those easily. Already ordered, will get here about the same time as the background.
Back to work for me, weather is good enough that I can bring some of this to group today. We are still meeting outside, our host's husband is in fragile state and even with vaccinations, she's keeping the house a clean zone.