Let's Use Up All of this Fabric!

About two years ago, a friend who was preparing to move to another state gave me part of her fabric collection. The fact that my share amounted to 300 pounds tells you a little about the extent of her fiber addiction. Now, it's not easy to store 300 pounds of fabric and it's even tougher to use it all, particularly when your stash already runneth over. But I was now the proud owner of colors and patterns that I might never had selected myself. And if I had to attach a pricetag to this bounty, it was pretty much like winning a lottery.

I wrote about this mixed blessing in an article published by Threads Magazine called "Weighty Windfall."

At the time, I vowed to make a charity quilt each month, which I have. I promised to donate a lot of the fabric to organizations like Linus Project and Quilts with Valor. Done. And I even started an etsy shop called Quilting Miss Daisy (www.etsy.com/shop/quiltingmissdaisy) to give me a venue for saleable items.

However, my sewing room closet still harbors untold yardage, as well as scraps too precious to set free. (What do they say? If they were meant to be mine, they'd come back to me anyway.)

It didn't help that late last year I decided to enter my first quilt contest. Sponsored by a fabric retailer, it required me to purchase all new fabric (because submitting the receipts was part of the entry). Now, buying fabric is a great joy, but for the piece I made, I challenged myself to work only with fat quarters. 65 of them. That were then cut into small pieces. So I have a lot left over.

Anyway, I've decided that (unless I enter a similar contest this year) I will sew through what I've been hoarding (uh, storing) and not buy any fabric this year.

Join me on my journey. You'll get to see the sum of what I've sewn and listen to my musings along the way. I can't promise to always keep you in stitches, but at least it will "seam" like I'm trying.