Build a Stash You’ll Work From with These Tips

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A Little Planning Will Make Your Fabric Stash More Usable!

Unless you’re one of those rare quilters who only buys fabric for a specific project, you probably have a fabric stash started. It’s hard to resist the urge to bring special finds home to tuck away for future use.

Over time, those extra purchases can really add up, creating a significant fabric stash. While it’s in the quilter DNA to collect and admire fabric, how much of your stash actually gets used? After all, shopping from your stash is a worthy and rewarding goal, regardless of how hard it is to cut up especially beautiful fabric.

Build a Stash You'll Work From with These Tips

Putting quilts together from your stash can sometimes be a challenge. Some quilters tend to collect a lot of one or two colors and few of others. Maybe you prefer lights and darks but have a limited number of medium-range fabrics. Or, you have a lot of medium and large scale prints and few that are small in scale.

Your stash reflects your quilt style, of course, but could it use some expansion in color and style to make it more workable? This might be a good time to do an evaluation and determine what types of fabrics would make it easier to put quilts together from your stash.

Sandi from Piecemeal Quilts has written an excellent article about building a workable stash. It’s also a nice lesson in combining fabrics for beautiful quilts. You’re sure to find a lot of good ideas here to keep in mind as you continue to develop your stash.

Click here for the “PM/GC Quilts Skill Builder Series: Part 2A – Fabric” article.

A companion article by Jeanne of Grey Cat Quilts expands on the topic. Between the two articles you’ll be able to evaluate your stash and determine what to emphasize in the future.

Click here for the “Moar Fabric” article.

There’s nothing wrong with falling in love with a fabric and buying some “just because”. However, as you continue collecting it only makes sense to create a nice stash with a balanced variety that you’ll actually work from.

 

PLEASE NOTE: Quilting Digest has featured many patterns from vendors participating in the Craftsy Marketplace, most of which have been deleted by Craftsy. It's going to take awhile for us to hunt down new sources for those patterns. In the meantime there are many links to patterns on our site that no longer work. We apologize if this article contains one or more of those links and appreciate your patience while we straighten things out. Thank you!




PLEASE NOTE: Quilting Digest does not sell or otherwise provide patterns directly. We showcase patterns and projects from various vendors, bloggers and other sources. Please make a note of where you access a pattern (the link in the yellow box toward the end of each Quilting Digest article). That way you can contact Support for that source if you have downloading problems or other issues. Thank you!

 

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