roseytheriveter

I think I'll join. I stopped myself from buying fabric this week...shamed myself into remembering I have a cabinet full of fabric and I need to use it.

Gemm

Impressive achievement, Lena! Sometimes the stash can be more of an anchor than an inspiration, so good for you for taking the plunge!

WMU, knowing how well you manage to turn out finished quilts, I'm sure your purchases will soon be through the revolving door.

And welcome again, Rosey! We look forward to hearing from you here.

WMUTeach

Thanks for the compliment, Gemm. When I accepted my SIL's stash, tools and books nearly 25 years ago after she passed away, I felt strongly that I should carry on her tradition of gifting family babies and graduates with a quilt. I had done plenty of sewing and crafting and a bit of quilting but had not focused on quilts alone. I began with a baby quilt for a niece. The journey began and I made a baby quilt for a niece. Some of those babies are now getting graduation quilts! After a span of time, I heard clear direction to quietly give others the warm hug that comes from a quilt. This meant putting my SIL's stash to work in new ways by blessing others. I have been motivated to sew everyday and to give unexpected and often unannounced quilt gifts. I have never run out of stash, batting or thread. As soon as I get low on a color, there it is on a free table or on sale and I have the $$ to purchase.

Blessings come both ways - giving quietly and always having what is needed to make just one more quilt with what is on hand. I have emptied many totes of fabric but still have plenty to use. Just not enough time to try all of the patterns I want to try. You all know how that is.

Keep stitching and giving and stitching some more, everyone.

retiredteacher09

Welcome, Rosey. I look forward to your comments and pictures.

WMUTeach: True to blessings coming both ways. Almost all of my stash is from donations to our church quilting group. Someone recently left a stash of batiks-scraps and quite a few yards, The timing and donation was perfect as I have March and April designated to use batiks. Now I have more variety of colors/designs. We give the finished quilts to a local charity.

WMUTeach

Yes, yes, yes! Three cheers for your batik stash builder. Perfect timing and I look forward to seeing how you will put those new additions to work for your group's donation quilts. I am looking forward to finishing some projects so I can start on something new. Another UFO and one big project must be finished first. Then into my stash I will go to start something new.

Belfrybat

Wonderful story about your SIL's stash and your use of it, @WMUTeach . I went to JoAnn yesterday to see what was on sale and walked out with nothing. I was tempted on a sunflower fabric but there was only about a yard left and I wanted more. The sign on the front of the store stated they are still getting in new inventory from the warehouse so I'll check back next week. When the discount on the Keepsake Calico gets better I'll probably get some. But it will be a planned purchase for a particular quilt, not just willy-nilly buying.

QuiltingPandaBear

I was digging around in my office the other day and found 2 large quantities of fabric from 2011 I had for the most part forgotten about. Both had been full bolt purchases: a Roc-Lon waffle muslin in tan and a white cotton Birdseye/diaper cloth. I started pondering useful ways I can use these and the Birdseye seemed like a great fit for something else I’ve been wanting to tackle: reducing our use of consumable products.

Two places we use a ton of paper towels are kitchen mess cleanup and dog cleanup. In the kitchen it’s largely that our kitchen towels are from our travels, we use the for drying hands and clean dishes not
messy cleanup. For the dog, bless him he’s just a slobbery mess and requires face wiping after each meal and after schlurping water or he just slobbers everywhere.

So I pulled 1/4 yard of fabric I had left from when I bought samples to make curtains 6+ years ago and an old teal sheet and got to work making 12” blocks, which got sewn to the Birdseye, turned right sides out and top stitched. I completed 10 of these to use the whole 1/4 yard of scrap curtain fabric. I ended up with odd sizes of Birdseye left that I am going to repeat this process with another set of fabric for doggie face wipes to keep in a basket by his food area.

The 10 completed kitchen ‘rags’ used about 1.3 yards of Birdseye and 1.3 yards of top fabric from stash.

WMUTeach

QuiltingPandaBear, I have a quilting friend who does a similar thing. She has an extensive stash and pulled out some good flannel and made 10 or 12 inch square (finished) to use in place of paper towels. Then because her family of children and grandchildren is large and used lots of paper napkins, she grabbed more fabric odds and ends and hemmed it all around pressed and made napkins. She can get a huge number of washings out of the napkins before they start to look shabby and worn. Then they become dust and cleaning cloths. Each homemade fabric replacement for paper towels/napkins has its own special basket for storage. She is cleaning better with less waste of trees and products and she reduced her stash to boot

Keep up the good sustainable work for our dear planet.

Belfrybat

@QuiltingPandaBear Great idea! I use up scraps from backings as kitchen cloths but just pink around the edges. I get three or four uses before the edges start to shred. I hadn't thought of doubling them -- a bit more work but they sure would last longer. Thanks for the tip. And I love your pieced kitchen cloths. Very snazzy.

Iceblossom

I'm cleaning up after this year's Bonnie Hunter project and doing another round of organizing and purging fabrics. In the last craziness of moving, I brought more than I really want and everything just got shoved into "available space".

Anyway, I'm doing really good in fabric out, and in fabric willing to donate, but caught myself looking at potential fabric in and came to my senses and came here instead.

I put a picture in the organizing thread, a friend of mine sent me some "project bags" that I'm using to help sort my small collections of fabric -- "cats" have a whole tote and dogs probably have most of one, but "Minions" and "Sewing Theme" are worth stacking. This bags will really help to find what I'm looking for without ruffling the things I don't want.