The Sewing Place

Building a usable stash

Lowena

Re: Building a usable stash
« Reply #15 on: July 25, 2021, 16:17:23 PM »
I'm with @LeilaMay I can't see the point. Why spend money unnecessarily?
Triumph of hope over experience :D

Diane

Re: Building a usable stash
« Reply #16 on: July 25, 2021, 16:38:19 PM »
I'm a fabric hoarder and proud to admit it  :dance: and good job i am as during the pandemic you couldn't get hold of fabric easily so i relied upon my stash
I’m a fabricholic on the road to recovery. Just kidding. I’m on the road to the fabric store.

Janome Memory Craft Horizon 9450QCP, Janome 4300QDC, Overlocker Brother 1034d, Husqvarna Viking Designer Topaz 40

LeilaMay

Re: Building a usable stash
« Reply #17 on: July 25, 2021, 17:40:30 PM »
I like having a stash.....it's a bit like having a fridge full of comfort food  :laughing:

Fair enough, but I don't have a fridge full of comfort food either.
In fact, when we admit we have too much food, or anything else "for comfort" we are highlighting something in our lives we should deal with, instead of hiding in the 'comfort' of not addressing it. But that's just me, not for everyone, I know.

 :grouphug:

Diane

Re: Building a usable stash
« Reply #18 on: July 25, 2021, 18:11:29 PM »
I don't have a fridge full of comfort food either (well not at the moment)  :laughing: and having a stash of fabric doesn't mean that there's an issue that i should be dealing with. I like fabric, i love buying it and i love looking at it.......nothing wrong with that. 

Lets buy more fabric  :perfect10:
I’m a fabricholic on the road to recovery. Just kidding. I’m on the road to the fabric store.

Janome Memory Craft Horizon 9450QCP, Janome 4300QDC, Overlocker Brother 1034d, Husqvarna Viking Designer Topaz 40

RJR_38

Re: Building a usable stash
« Reply #19 on: July 25, 2021, 19:02:07 PM »
@RJR_38 I was going to suggest grunge!  It's one of my favorites. I buy 3 yard lengths, sometimes 4 yards of good blender or backing fabrics. Also binding fabrics if fantastic I'll get several yards.


My basic rule for many fabrics is 1 to 1¼ yards so it could become a pillowcase or 3ish yards if it would be a good look for summer weight crop pants. Moda grunge makes great casual pants.  :thumbsup:  I buy fat quarters of lovely fabrics I can't imagine actually ever using. It satisfies the acquisition urge without taking up much space. Many of all the above do end up in quilts but in case they don't I have enough for them to be useful in some other manner.


@Renegade Sewist Moda grunge is so much more affordable over in US (£8.50 per yard compared to £12 per m which is only a tiny bit longer). Whenever one of my American friends kindly gets some bit to post over for me I always ask them to get a hard or two of grunge to bulk up the package
« Last Edit: July 25, 2021, 21:07:03 PM by RJR_38 »

Flobear

Re: Building a usable stash
« Reply #20 on: July 25, 2021, 19:21:35 PM »
I only have a little stash as I haven't been P&Qing all that long. But it grew somewhat  during lockdown because ordering fabric online meant that matching colours up was a bit hit and miss.

What I do have is a lot of leftover pieces from many years of Light siding although I have had a few sort-outs over time and taken fabrics to school for various projects.

Maybe I could use the suitable leftovers for some sort of scrappy quilt. Hmm
Proud new owner of Elvistoo !!

Deafoldbat

Re: Building a usable stash
« Reply #21 on: July 25, 2021, 19:58:49 PM »
If you know what you want to make, buy for that project. Are all the blocks going to be exactly the same? You can buy exact amounts.

But if you like variety and scrap quilts, you buy things you like when you see them, (especially if the price is right - but don't confuse quality on special offer with cheap because it's nasty) along with the basics, black, cream, white on white etc. If you're short of one fabric, you just add another similar one to the mix, because you have it already - no waiting for the postman. Leftovers should not be binned, unless the bits are so tiny you can't get anything out of them, or the fabric was such poor quality you don't want to use it again. Someone grew that cotton and it used many resources, don't waste it.

To build a stash, take out the fabrics you have and sort them by colour and value (light or dark). You can then see if you have too many of some colours/values or not enough, and buy to fill/replenish the gaps. Remember, you may not like a colour - you wouldn't wear it for example - but you should still buy it. Why restrict your choices when that bit of lime green may be just the thing to sharpen up the palette you'd chosen that's looking a bit dull.

Stash building is not a rapid process and depends on opportunities and finances. It needn't be huge, and you can keep fabrics as long as you like before you use them. If you fall out of love with them, piece them up into a back and buy something you do like.

If you can find it, Color and Cloth is useful (there are copies on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Color-Cloth-Quiltmakers-Ultimate-Needlework/dp/0844226203).

Renegade Sewist

Re: Building a usable stash
« Reply #22 on: July 25, 2021, 20:27:00 PM »
Fair enough, but I don't have a fridge full of comfort food either.
In fact, when we admit we have too much food, or anything else "for comfort" we are highlighting something in our lives we should deal with, instead of hiding in the 'comfort' of not addressing it. But that's just me, not for everyone, I know.

 :grouphug:

So then @LeilaMay do you not have furniture "for comfort", shoes that fit properly "for comfort", healthy foods for the comfort of your gut biome, a bed "for comfort" so you sleep comfortably and therefore wakeup refreshed? You seem to be treating the word comfort like a bad thing.

The chair I have "for comfort" is from the 1920s. It has a hard flat seat and a straight wooden back and is indeed for my comfort. I don't consider giving my body comfort a bad thing.

Most of the fabrics I add to the collection are basics for me. I seldom use white or off white but red and acid green are staples. Interesting versions are  not always available. I would not want to cut up for piecing a fabric I've had to pay $12 -15  for which is what quality fabric costs now. I won't buy or use cheap junk. But when I've been able to find something that would be an excellent binding or backing that's high quality and crazy cheap I'll get 3 to 6 yards of it. More than once I've gotten something a little strange that I overdyed for a perfect backing.

Although it is lovely to walk into a quilt shop and buy everything you need for a project in one go, especially if they have good employees who help you get perfect fabrics, it is very expensive to do that. I don't know many quilters who can afford to do that all the time.

@Deafoldbat is right on the money with her suggestions.  :thumbsup:

If we have a full fabric store at home or strictly buy as we go project by project the choices are all valid.
Hey Bill! Read the manual!  Hehehe.

Catllar

Re: Building a usable stash
« Reply #23 on: July 25, 2021, 20:54:47 PM »
My stash has been reducing steadily and now it's got to the stage where I feel the need to replenish.

 As I'm not a block maker my quilts may have many many different colours. I don't enjoy making identical units.

 I will buy when I see something I like. I am really low on acid colours  so that'll be the next thing.

I enjoy fabric, it gives me pleasure. It sits quietly in the box and doesn't eat anything , just waits for me to find it a home I usually buy half metre minimum.  I am often tempted by pretties and I love to bring back fabrics from holidays. I have some loveliness from New Zealand that is proudly showing NZ trees - heck knows what I'll do with it but eventually it'll tell me where it wants to go, and in the meantime it reminds me of a fabulous trip.
If life gives you lemons, add to gin and tonic !

Renegade Sewist

Re: Building a usable stash
« Reply #24 on: July 25, 2021, 21:58:30 PM »
I will buy when I see something I like. I am really low on acid colours  so that'll be the next thing.

Acid colors. Yessss...  :meditation:
Hey Bill! Read the manual!  Hehehe.

BrendaP

Re: Building a usable stash
« Reply #25 on: July 26, 2021, 11:38:05 AM »
If you know what you want to make, buy for that project.
...
But if you like variety and scrap quilts, you buy things you like when you see them,

That's so right. 

My patchwork stash is mostly little bits - that @Lowena would have thrown away!  Yes I buy FQs, but I've also got the odd shaped bits left from making clothes (only the woven cottons), bits bought from the sales table at craft club and I'm still working through the last of the bag of remnants, many of which were 6"-8" width of fabric, which I got at Doughty's a couple of years ago.

The current scrap quilt project, which for some odd reason I have not been able to upload to TSP, is about half whites, which I had to buy, and the rest is a glorious mixture of all colours all from stash - including the left over bits from @RJR_38 's boom swap.  Everyone who's taking part in that has contributed a tiny bit, so thank you all.
Brenda.  My machines are: Corona, a 1953 Singer 201K-3, Caroline, a 1940 Singer 201K-3, Thirza, 1949 Singer 221K, Azilia, 1957 Singer 201K-MK2 and Vera, a Husqvarna 350 SewEasy about 20 years old. Also Bernina 1150 overlocker and Elna 444 Coverstitcher.
http://paternoster.orpheusweb.co.

Iminei

Re: Building a usable stash
« Reply #26 on: July 26, 2021, 20:55:53 PM »
I second @Deafoldbat 's post. Spot on Old Girl!

And during lockdown I made 2 or 3 quilts ALL from stash ... (Tho I admit I had to buy the backing fabric  :| )

Everything else was from stash ... ALL year (and this so far ...

and what about all the BOM's I make .. Yup you guessed it!
The Imperfect Perfectionist sews again