As promised: Stash post!

As I read the blogs of other quilters, one of the things that I am most intrigued by is what their stashes look like. How do they store it? What colors do they favor? Are all of their WIPs stored together or separately? So I figured I would share mine, too. :)




This is my stash (just the tupperware bins, not the boxes behind--this is our "storage/kinda-guest-room", perpetually unfinished--as is evidenced by the painters tape that won't come off the wall... *sigh*). The big bins on the right-hand side are the bulk of it--FQs, yardage, etc. The smaller bins on the left are separated out by WIPs, UFOs, and in one case, WHIMMs. The WHIMM box is my 1930s prints, which are currently earmarked for a couple of baby quilts. I haven't started them yet, so they're just hanging around right now.


Inside one of my big bins. This is my uncategorized, catch-all, not earmarked for anything bin. Yardage, FQs, etc. When I talk about using up stash, this is mostly the one I want to work out of and finish off. Maybe it's a librarian thing, but having this big box of fabric that doesn't "belong" to anything kind of bugs me. The good news, for me, is that when I got home last night, I sifted through it and picked out a bunch of purples and greens for my next project, so I busted several yards. Hardly looks like I made a dent, but it's a start!!



Here is the innards of another bin--my Civil War repros. Some are slightly looser interpretations, and solidly half of it is care of my bestest quilty friend, Wendy, who decided the best way to get me moving on a Dear Jane project (or three) was to give me more ammo! Currently, I am still so awed by my embarassment of riches, I'm at a stand-still. Sorry, Wenders!


This is the innards of my handpiecing WIP bucket. A little pair of scissors, the horrifying pincusion I made a million years ago from some old scraps my mom had (my younger brother had a pair of jams made out of that fabric back in the 80s, to give you an idea!), spools of thread, and HSTs for pinwheels. This is what I do when I'm watching TV, etc. at home. The little bucket has a handle, so it's nice and portable. :)

This is what I mean by categorizing. In this bin, I have fabrics which are divided into batiks (lower right), oriental fabrics (top--I have plans for a flying-geese quilt with these), and paisleys and accents fabric (lower left) for my Stars over Kasmir quilt, which has yet to be started. I don't sort by color or value, but by what I envision them becoming a part of in the future. Again, I think it may have to do with the librarian thing. I don't shelve books together by color, or size, or what's on the cover. I shelve all the ones with the same subject together.

Oh, and even more of an embarassment than my "everything goes" bucket? Is this:


I know that Wendy, among others, is crying looking at this. This is my box (cardboard, yes, I know, bad quilter, no cookie) of "what the hell was I thinking??" fabrics. Enormous florals, novelties in a variety of flavors, animal prints--EEK!! Yes, they are going to find another home--and most of them will wind up in charity quilts of one form or another. In the meantime, they just make me absolutely crazy.

Want to share your stash with me and other quilters? Post it in your blog, and leave the url as a comment!

--Meg

PS--I am so totally going to join some of the challenges at Stashbuster.com next year--I want to get rid of some of this!!