Thursday, April 4, 2013

Destash the old stuff

Jenny want to know what we do with that old fabric.  I started quilting in the early 1990s and accumulated fabric from a grandmother and great-grandmother, as well as yard sales, and Piece Goods-like Joanns.  I had some quilt store quality fabric, mostly Hoffmans, and Nancy Crows.  I stopped quilting in 2000 due to a move, change of jobs, lack of space, illness, graduate school...then started in July 2010.  This is what I had when I unpacked the long stored boxes.

I sorted it and organized and touched it, and realized I really did not like alot of it.  I still had no clue at point what awesome modern quilt store fabrics were now out there.

Ive slowly destashed my 1990s and early 2000s fabric that I didnt want to keep a few ways.  
  • Sell in my etsy store(least successful unless lnked to blog sale)
  • sell it in online blog yard sales 
  • sell on fb destashing auction pages (most successful ways).  
  • Ive given it away on my blog-vintage Christmas is the most popular followed.
  • Ive donated to my quilt guild
  • Ive also made donation quilts with some of it
The blue and orange solids, and notice the 2000 fabric!

Most is gone except for the stuff I half like.  
Kept or used the top shelve, destashed the bottom(except for 2 of my favorite sunflower prints!)

I've pulled some of it out to use in Bonnie Hunters Quiltmaker magazine mystery. 

 And boy am I cutting it up!  The mystery uses about 12 yards for the blocks and another 8 yards for the backing and binding.  A couple are Joanns prints that I bought before I discovered my LQSs!

That's a lot of yards!  I will probably have some scraps.  I will probably cut them up for bow tie leaders and enders. 

 I need more cut as I don't have enough blocks for the bow tie scrap quilt I want to make. I like Bonnie Hunters philosophy that any fabric can  be successfully used in a scrap quilt like the one above and the mystery.  Its all about color and value.  She has a ton of free patterns on her website.  Many of you may be familiar with the scrappytripalong that has gone viral all over the web starting on instagram.  

Well there you have my old stash.
Link up your old stash and what you do with it with Jenny over at Squwak That

keep dreaming...Colleen
And this is what I have, well what I had last summer.  There may or may not be more.




10 comments:

Kelli Fannin Quilts said...

Wow, that fabric filled wall in that last pic looks dreamy! Amazing how fabric accumulates.. I have lots of old fabric, and then inherited my grandmother's old fabrics, too. :)

Kelli Fannin Quilts said...

Wow, that fabric filled wall in that last pic looks dreamy! Amazing how fabric accumulates.. I have lots of old fabric, and then inherited my grandmother's old fabrics, too. :)

Barb said...

Now that is a stash....I thought I had a lot of fabric...ummm ummmm good.

Kelly said...

Let me know if you want to go through the guild stash! There are lots of small stuff you could use for the bow-ties! And since you have donated, it will be free!

Katie said...

I love that stash photo at the end. My stash is carefully hidden in a dresser and other various places throughout the craft space so my hubby doesn't have a heart attack but I would love to have it all out to look at all the time -- silly space issues since the dresser has to stay in the room or a different dresser would come in instead.

beaquilter said...

I'm destashing too and actually doing a scrappy trip around the world, used left over binding strips, and OH boy there's some UGLIES in there.... then I have tons of regular scraps too, hmm no clue what to do with them YET! but my binding strips BIN is empty YAY!

Jenny Squawk said...

Wow, Colleen! I've seen some of you destash posts, but wow. That's a lot of sunflowers. Thanks for linking up, too. Looking forward to seeing your mystery all done with that yardage.

Jenny Squawk said...

Wow, Colleen! I've seen some of you destash posts, but wow. That's a lot of sunflowers. Thanks for linking up, too. Looking forward to seeing your mystery all done with that yardage.

Paige said...

It looks like you always have a lot to choose from when pulling fabric. I didn't know you'd been quilting for so long. I am still holding fast to my almost-no-stash rule....

Michelle said...

Looks like you're doing a LOT with your old fabric!