Category Archives: Quilt Fabric Stash

AbbiMays.com Five Yard Bundles

Quilt Therapy Posted on by

I often find myself with a lot of fat quarters and very little yardage to go with it!  You too?

One thing I have found to keep my fabric stash balanced amongst all of the baskets full of fat quarters and fabric scraps is to purchase a couple of Five Yard Bundles from AbbiMays.com.

These bundles are not the pick-and-choose what fabrics you specifically want but all of them go together, either with matching fabrics or coordinating fabrics.  And the price?  It cannot be beat – $22 for five yards of fabric.  Unheard of, these days!  Here are a few that caught my eye from the “Quilting for Charity” page:

AM1

AM3

AM2

Just having these beauties would make my heart sing and my quilting gene sore!  Go ahead, check out the amazing specials offered by AbbiMays.com.  And if you purchase there, use the coupon code tammy10 for an additional 10% off your purchase!

There’s No Crying in Quilting!

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ahem…ahem…I’ll be okay, just clearing my throat.  R I G H T.  There CAN be crying in quilting.  And, at least in my case, it’s usually because of nutty errors I’ve made and not something more unforgiving such as my sewing machine breaking down, I am on my last rotary cutter blade and have to literally cut apart my fabric with scissors, I ran out of thread and the nearest quilt shop that carries my thread is 45 minutes away, etc. etc.

This past Sunday, I was ready to hang it all up.  I had designed a lovely table runner and was going to use my signature sew-n-slash methods for making the blocks that would create the table runner.  I had already pulled out some fabric for this table runner so all that was left was to put a single block together and then, if it worked as I planned, I could create another seven blocks for the project.

My first snafu occurred when I sewed one color of strips incorrectly – so, the green was next to the purple but in my design, the WHITE was supposed to be next to the purple.  No worries, I quickly reexamined my blocks and decided I would rotate them - half with the green next to the purple and the other half with the white next to the purple.  It was all good, and would still look pretty.  And it did!  It all came together beautifully!

Snafu #2 happened when I sewed the second block – one of the strips of green was too short…I had sewn the strips in the wrong order.  I did a little ripping and figured I’d just sew an extension to that green strip and all would be good.  Unfortunately, I also did a little nipping and accidentally cut the white strip next to the green strip – no way was I going to make that square work now.  hrumph

Snafu #3 was when I realized I hadn’t pulled enough scraps out from my stash so I asked DD#2 to help me.  She did a great job and found more scraps that I could use, including one we made work.

I decided, instead of using my sew-n-slash method, I would use a foundation pieced method.  This meant I was able to lay out the strips, to be sure I sewed them all in the correct order but also that I had enough of the scraps to use.  Back to the drawing board…errr, stash baskets for my daughter!  And my snafu #4.

Ah yes, it couldn’t stop there now could it?  After a little break from it all, I went back and marked the strips onto the foundation piece.  Went to place the fabrics to measure for length and messed up the lines (needed 1/4″ more for each line) so ironed off the markings and re-measured.  Oh yes, I am sure you can see what’s coming!  Snafu #5 occurred when I started sewing the strips to the foundation and went to press them – I erased ALL of the other lines I’d drawn!  ARGH  (mental note:  if using a disappearing ink pen, be very, very careful!)

Once I redrew the lines, the sewing went pretty quickly – I was pleased with the ease of putting the blocks together.  Until Snafu #6 occurred where I once again didn’t gauge the length of a strip needed and ended up with a mess I was NOT going to fix.

I was done.

Turned off my machine and ironing board and left the whole mess for another day – when perhaps, I won’t cry anymore over my mistakes.

Stash Buster Project Organization

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I will be the first to admit that I break training when it comes to keeping my fabric stash organized.  I have a high cutting table (built especially for my height so as not to strain my back) and I am forever piling projects or papers on it – instead of using it for its intended purpose.  Part of my reasoning is that half of the table is out of my reach because my sewing room is the smallest room in the house.  The other part of my reasoning is that I am quite forgetful (thank you MS) and by having my projects right in front of me, I can remember what I need to work on next, after I finish a project.

During the summer, our middle daughter and I had to make a run to a dollar store for some items to get the kids ready for summer camps and I found baskets that I thought would fit perfectly on my sewing room shelves.  Once the baskets were in my sewing room, middle daughter wanted to help me with my organization of fabrics – I also think she was searching for fabric that she may want to use for a project 🙂

Baskets

The dollar store that we went to wasn’t actually a “Dollar Store” as the products were anywhere from a dollar and up.  We purchased six medium sized baskets and two smaller baskets – they were $2 each.  Later, on another of my dollar store trips, I *did* find the same size baskets for $1 and snatched up six more of them as my DD had to overfill some baskets because I had more stash on that one shelf than I imagined (blush).

As my fellow quilters know, there are just some quilts and quilted projects (table runners, table toppers, etc.) that are just meant to be made from scraps.  The stash speaks to us, just as a pile of new fabric speaks to us.  Okay, I am going out on a limb with saying that – MY fabric speaks to ME – you don’t have to admit that yours does, too 😀

Here is the fabric I picked out of my stash for a fun quilt project:

IMG_0454

Now comes my long overdue revelation – those one dollar baskets?  They are PERFECT for holding the fabric for the next quilt or quilt project on my to-do list.  And I can organize them by placing one inside the other with the most pressing projects in the top basket!

It’s a shame I am so slow in understanding how important it is to organize my fabric stash – but, it’s downright embarrassing to say that may of you may already be organizing your projects with some type of basket.  I have done well in keeping my stash organized throughout the summer.  Although, I have to admit that once I cleaned off my cutting table, I had to start piling finished projects or works in progress projects there – there just isn’t room for a larger basket and my shelves are all full to brimming over!