My Stash

My stash has be getting over whelming for some time now. My shelves are so full, you can't even slide one more piece into the stack, they are wedged too tight. So everything was starting to pile up on the edge of the shelves, and threatening to fall over. I also could NOT find the fabrics I was looking for. I have occasionally weeded out the older fabric, the uglies, the stuff I just won't use, but it was useless, I still bought more than I got rid of or used. I had really limited my fabric buying in the last several years, only buying fabric for borders and backings. Except for the occasional MUST HAVES! My stash consists of a lot of fat quarters, Bali batiks, landscape fabrics, Blue and purple, and all those weird conversation prints of alligators, playing cards, eagles, school buses, Elvis, soccer balls, etc... So it was time for the big straightening and clean up. BEFORE PICTURES---

It took me several hours at a time, to get control of each section, refolding, straightening, getting rid of stuff, and trying to get it to fit back on the shelves. It is always fun to play with your fabric, to touch it, look at it closely, and wonder why in the hell you bought that in the first place. I discovered some wonderful fabrics that I had forgotten that I had, the joy of discovery was almost as fun as going shopping in the first place. But the realization that I will NEVER use it all was sort of depressing, try as I might I can hardly make a dent in it, and I am a prolific quilter. AFTER----

My fabric is arranged in color groups, pink, mauve, burgundy, reds, and blues, turquoise, teals, then greens, then oranges, yellows, etc...the batiks are separate, but also arranged by color, and all the landscape fabrics are separate, arranged by type, leaves, foliage, bricks & stones, bark, animal prints, water & sky, etc.. The photos only show a portion of the fabric that I have, I have several more shelf areas, and boxes and bags and other stuff. It truly is over whelming. The fabric that I removed from the shelves, became precut pieces for baby quilts and charity quilts. The guild has a "Create a Block" project where we let people at our show and other events, arrange fabric into blocks, that we sew and use for charity quilts. I have a large supply of precut pieces that I play with at home too. It took quiet a while to cut up fabric, the leftovers I give to a friend's "Aunt Marilyn" she loves to make scrap quilts, and I give her a lot of my scraps.