Author: Pat

Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy

I plan to have used all of my fabric when the time I have on this earth is finished. Buying fabric at the JoAnn store liquidation sale might have made that more difficult, but I’m okay with it.

This is the photo I took back at the end of April after a very L O N G day of shopping at 3 different JoAnn’s locations within a half hour driving distance of each other.

I purchased 697 yards of fabric at an average $1.29 paid per yard. I am factoring in a $200 credit card bonus that I used to actually pay for the purchase in case you’re quieting thinking “no way!”. 🙂

Wells Fargo offered a $200 reward when you spent $500 in the first three months of receiving their card. I had anticipated the store would be closing soon so I applied for the card when I saw the offer and got it just in time for the last week of the store’s liquidation sales. I was actually a little surprised to get it. I think I took advantage of the same offer in 2019 and closed the card a year later. I suppose it had been long enough to not prevent the new card offer.

I’d also began tucking away extra mad money prior to the store closing so I’d be ready when the best sale prices were likely – the last couple of days that the store would still be open.

I agree that credit cards can be dangerous however; I never carry a balance on them, learning that lesson the hard way when I was young and dumb. I trust myself to pay the bill in full every month – and that’s exactly what I did this time too.

Back to the fabric…

I spent a week measuring/marking and folding fabric to fit my shelves. Prices were reduced further if you purchased the remaining amount on the bolt. I bought 19 bolts of wide backing but not all were full bolts. I also folded the backings that were 4 yards or less so I could try to use the smaller pieces first.

Here’s the photo I took the day I finished putting it all away. I was pretty tired but also happy that I could make it all fit neatly with the fabric I already owned.

I silently chuckle when family and non-quilting friends look shocked by all this fabric. If they only knew how modest it actually is for the length of time I’ve been quilting. 😉

You can see from the photo I took today that things have changed in the last four months and quite a bit of fabric has already been used.

Shelf space opened up move some of my string quilts from the guest room closet to the top of this closet. My goal is to eventually have more finished quilts here than fabric. I like to keep several extra finished quilts on hand for those times I want to give one away on before I’ve had time to make it from scratch.

I’ve also been able to return my travel sewing machine and case back to the bottom of the closet. Best of all, I’ve had fun using the fabric I was able to purchase at a great price to make quilts I wanted to make.

While it may seem like S.A.B.L.E. to some, to me it represents three to five years of quilt making at my average rate of about 300+ yards per year.

I often say that it’s lack of space that motivates me to keep my fabric accessible and as neat as possible. The truth is, to do otherwise would feel like hoarding which makes me anxious.

I bristle watching guilds spend more and more of their funds on storing donated fabrics, regardless of their justifications. If what’s coming in is not in sync with what’s going out, there’s a problem, or soon will be.

Am I worried about what happens in the future when I use all of this up?

Not at all!

With faith, you don’t fear scarcity or live with the stress and limiting thoughts that come with it. I’ve seen people work to gather much more than they’ll ever use or need, only to struggle with keeping it all. That’s not how I choose to live.

To be clear, I do understand the difference between hoarding (a mindset) and a simple measurement of the amount you own. I know quilters with thousands of yards of fabric who completely enjoy it, use it, and share it with others. That’s not what I think of as hoarding. Not even close. Hoarding is holding onto what you have (regardless of whether it’s a lot or a little) with a fist clenched so tightly that you almost fear using it as much as you do giving even the smallest amount away.

When I read the Cambridge Dictionary definition, I realized it’s no wonder I was so uncomfortable with a guild that chose to use all their resources to store fabric that only a few had access to and most had never even seen.

Hoarding: the act of collecting large amounts of something and keeping it for yourself, often in a secret place

Faith means trusting in the promise of abundance and feeling content with “enough”. It allows your world to expand with new possibilities. Your efforts grow, you give to others, and you share, all without worrying about running out.

How you feel about what you own is far more important than how much or, how little you have. “My people” are those that choose to live with an open hand, not a clinched fist.

This week was as busy as last week. After my quilt guild meeting last Saturday, I was too tired to do my weekly reset. I thought it would take most of Sunday since my cutting table was cluttered. By 9:30 though, I decided to spend a few minutes tidying up so it wouldn’t keep me awake all night thinking about it. It only took 15 minutes to clean up but I didn’t like that feeling of dread so I need to make a change.

Aside from my weekly bee project and a leaders/enders, I want to begin focusing on one project at a time until it’s done. Easier to keep things picked up and put away and no risk of turning any of them into UFOs. The end of the year gets pretty hectic so the more I can do to simplify life, the better!

This week I did make progress on all four of my goals. I worked some on my inspiration quilt but nothing to show for it yet and on making more string blocks. I also quilted my hot air balloon quilt but still need to bind it and I quilted one for the guild’s Community Outreach committee.

For the hot air balloon, I used the free pattern from The Linus Connection website although I did make a few changes. Here’s the link to their patterns.

I made it one row shorter that the pattern so my quilt will finish at approximately 40″ x 50″ as that’s a pretty good size quilt for a kiddo. I also added half square triangles to the bottom of the basket because I thought it would look more like a basket. (It’s hard to tell in these photos but all the 5″ basket squares were cut from different black and brown check and tweed looking fabrics.)

Rather than cut a lot of background squares, I kept the large pieces in tact as much as possible and assembled the top in sections as you can see from my drawing.

I also made good progress on my patriotic strings. I know just how I want to set each group of blocks. So far I’ve made:

• 12 blocks 12.5″ square
• 60 blocks 7.5″ square
• 48 blocks 9.5″ square (still in progress)
• 8 strips 2.5″ x 12.5″square (these are currently the string leader/enders but I’ll use the rest of the small pieces up when there are no more blocks left to piece)

I also want to use everything in the patriotic scrap bin. Last night I was looking through all my 3 Yard Quilt books and found two ideas in the Make It Patriotic book that I can use the small and large half square waste triangles. I drew them out on graph paper, altering the patterns slightly, so they’ll finish at my preferred adult size lap quilt in the range of 50″ to 54″ wide by 70″ to 72″ long.

I have a few 2 1/2″ strips and leftover binding pieces that I plan to use for a scrappy binding for one of the string quilts.

I want to make a Morning Star quilt with the rest of the scraps. I may have to add a few fat quarters of larger stash pieces to the scraps but, I’ll be making an adult lap size, not the bed size you see in these inspiration photos.

The first time I saw the quilt was in Pat Speth’s 2002 book called “Nickel Quilts”. As you can imagine, that version with the colorful fabrics above is made using 5″ squares.

The quilt with the larger brown fabrics is from a 2016 Quilted Digest post. Becky has a version of the quilt on Quilted Twins website here.

Maybe I’ll start making the star sashing pieces as my leader/ender project.

Last but not least, my husband brought home some new flashlights from Harbor Freight today. The little minis are inexpensive and good to keep by the bedside if the power goes out. I especially like these by Braun though. They’re magnetic, they’ll swivel, have two levels of brightness, and they aren’t huge. My husband kept telling me he has several in his garage workshop that are much heavier duty and rechargeable. I do feel better though having these in the house and more prepared for hurricane season! Happy wife, happy life. 🙂

Today I made a trip to Hobby Lobby and it was so hot I just didn’t think I’d have any energy left to cook so I stopped by KFC on the way home. After eating, I went back out to pick up my grocery order. I think it was even hotter by then! 🥵

The Hobby Lobby trip was to get a crafty gift for someone and to pick up supplies for a Santa wall hanging workshop at our guild next month. I thought it would be hard to even think about Christmas as hot as it was.

I was wrong. Hobby Lobby had everything Christmas on sale 50% off. So many nice things. So, so tempting! I only picked up a couple of boxes of Christmas cards.

I haven’t mailed cards in the last couple of years. It’s a fun tradition that I miss so this year I have no excuse to procrastinate until it’s too late.

Sticking with my plan, on Sunday and Monday I made more patriotic string blocks. Still have lots of these strings to make into blocks so I may try to sneak in a few between other quilting projects.

I started my next inspiration quilt from a 24 strip Kona jelly roll I’d purchased from JoAnns a while back and some leftover strips of white fabric I’d mentioned wanting to use up in the plan I referred to above.

Hope to get some quilting done later in the week. Lots of rain in the forecast so it’s a good excuse to stay inside and sew.

This week I stuck to my plan and worked on each of 4 of my weekly goals.

• personal quilt
• stings/scraps
• bee project
• quilt a guild Outreach top

I didn’t make this quilt top but it’s such a nice one that I wanted to share a photo of it. I quilted it for the Outreach committee of the Palm Beach County Quilters’ Guild and will turn it back in for the next member to bind it.

The quilt top has likely been stored for a while, and I don’t know the original maker, but she did a fantastic job piecing it. It’s uncommon to find a quilt top with five borders that don’t cause issues during quilting, so I appreciated how easy this one was to quilt. Trust me… when shortcuts are taken and borders are added without measuring, your quilter will definitely notice!

Even the backing was pieced well, no doubt due to the attention to detail by our committee chairwoman Vivian.

On Thursday I met with the local bee I recently joined. I’m not typically a morning person, having worked nightshift for many, many years, so I almost shrugged it off and skipped going this week. I’m so glad I didn’t! I worked on my hot air balloon quilt top while I was there but didn’t quite finish it. If you guessed I probably chatted too much, you might be right! 😉

This is such a wonderful group of ladies! No pressure to do anything, no costs, and everyone works on their own quilts. We have a little show & tell at the end of the day so you get to see the quilts that were finished and ready to be donated. Photos are taken to share with all the members later via text. What more could you possibly hope to find in a quilting group?

I did finish my other quilt that I categorize as a personal or bucket list quilt. Even though I’ve never been a fan of Kaffe fabrics, I wanted to try making a quilt with some scraps I had and a purchased charm pack.

While the blocks were on the design wall, I knew I was going to be disappointed in the quilt. I cut my losses, decided to eliminate a column and the border I’d planned to add. I just wanted it done so I could move on. The quilt finished at around 48″ x 68″. I started sewing the binding down by hand last night and finished it this morning. All I can say is at least it’s done and didn’t end up in a drawer as a UFO. That’s always a good thing.

I also made one set of string blocks this week. They’ll be bagged with an index card describing what my intentions are to finish them – namely add sashing with friendship star cornerstones and a border, so I won’t forget.

The next set will be 8″ finished blocks and will likely be set with alternate star blocks. Strings can get a bit messy to work with so I want to continue to make blocks out of all the patriotic strings I have while they’re out. Once that part of the process is done, I’ll make them into quilts.

Once those quilts are finished, I’ll repeat the process with the next category of strings- bright mixed prints.

I generally don’t do leaders/enders when making string blocks because I use leftover bobbin thread, no matter the color, and a very short stitch length to sew them. In this case I decided to start sewing the tiniest leftovers onto adding machine tape as a leader/ender project so I can use up the littlest strings too.

If I only have a few strips, I can always add to them by cutting up some patriotic scraps. I have a couple of ideas that won’t take very many of these adding machine tape strips.

Saturday is our monthly guild meeting with another workshop planned. It’s also the day to sign-up for a log cabin Santa workshop next month. I’m looking forward to the fun workshops that have been planned for the next several months.

I’m hoping to accomplish at least a little on all four of my goals again this week.

A few people may have found my blog this week through one connection or another since I’ve mentioned it to a few friends. I thought I’d share a few thoughts for anyone who may not be familiar with personal blogs.

• What IS a blog?
• Why do you have one?
• Do you make money on it?
• How often do you post?
• Do I have to “subscribe” to see your posts?
• Where do I go if I want to start one too?

What is a blog? It’s a journal of sorts. It’s a place to share thought and ideas, links, photos, and build a community with people who have similar interests. This one is personal but you can also find plenty of business blogs by doing a quick Google search for almost any topic you’re interested in.

Why do you have one? I’ll refer you to my first post here. I stopped blogging for awhile but I’m trying to renew the habit and revive some of my older posts that have since reverted back to draft form. The blog helps me communicate with quilters around the globe, and those close to home. Some of my friends are not on Facebook, and some friends there just aren’t that into quilting. (Go figure! LOL) It’s a place I can list my ideas and plans without losing them in a drawer and, an easy way to access my quilt photos when I’m with a friend and we’re sharing ideas.

Do you make money on it? No, I don’t. While some blogs do, mine is not at all monetized. Even though it’s a free blog, I actually pay a small yearly fee because I prefer not to deal with annoying ads and so anyone who visits the blog doesn’t have to deal with scrolling past advertisements either.

How often do you post? My goal is to post at least once a week. I’ve learned that even if I don’t have much to say, it’s easier for me to maintain the habit if I do it regularly.

Do I have to “subscribe” to see your posts? Nope. You can just come back to this website anytime. Subscribing is designed to make it easier for you. You’ll get an email with the post or, a link to come to the website to read it. Either way, you’ll know the minute I post (often before I’ve caught all the typos!). You won’t waste time visiting the blog if nothing has posted since the last time you checked.

Where do I go if I want to start one too? I use WordPress.com but Google also hosts free blogs at Blogger.com