Eyeballing my Stash

Before I get to the meat of this post, please comment favourably on my latest quilt finish: The Pixie's Circle quilt!

I was at the fabric store 20 minutes after it opened and picked up the missing thread (and a small piece of fabric - couldn't help myself).  I had the quilting finished by noon and the binding went on like a dream, thanks to being premade over the weekend. I'm absolutely loving machine binding quilts! Luckily, the Pixie was sleeping on the couch when I put the last stitch in; then Husband and I quickly photographed and hid the quilt. I'm hoping that out of sight = out of mind, at least until the Big Day.

Here's the back:

Now about my stash. My pathetically small fabric stash. My embarrassingly tiny fabric stash.

As it turns out, my stash is not all quality. It's all excellent quilting cottons - don't get me wrong. Nothing cheap in this collection.

But I just don't LOVE all of it. Quality to me is stuff I cannot wait to use - or love so much I never want to cut (can I get an amen?). I started quilting 11 years ago and one of my then-current relatives needed an idea for something to get me for the family Christmas gift swap. She figured it would be great to get me a quilting book and some cuts of fabric that she loved....and I do not love. I've held onto these fabrics for over a decade, waiting for my tastes to change, waiting until these fabrics would make it into the "beloved fabrics" pile.

And I conclude that 10 years is long enough to hold a grudge against a colour. I recently "met" a lovely quilty lady online and offered her these fabrics in exchange for some brighter scraps from her stash. She said yes! I'm so excited!

This is as close to true colour that I could bribe my camera to give me. And, Anna, I was wrong about the size. They're not fat quarters. They're half meter cuts. Enjoy!

But what to exchange? Do I want batik scraps? Children's prints? Random close-your-eyes-and-pray scraps?

These are pictures of stuff that has very recently made it into a place of honour in my stash. I cannot resist bright colours, stripes of any kind, anything spotty and dotty, batiks are good, stuff with words or music is better.

I bought these black and white prints with two specific projects in mind, and still need a few more meters before I can start designing. I'm also big into monochromatics, solids, unusual neutrals like gray, green and red. I select fabrics to enhance design possibilities; I do not buy fabric and then design a top to enhance the fabric. (No enormous Kaffe florals for me.)

I'm hoping this gives the whole world an idea of what my stash loves. Although I've been working on Christmas projects, they haven't been exciting me. I really just want to grab fabric and a rotary cutter and go nuts! My favorite method of designing quilts looks a lot like "winging it." January has so much potential!

In fact, most of my life looks like I wing it. And I do, of course.