Is There Such a Thing as Too Much Stash???

I have been working on a project for the last couple of weeks. It is the 100 Blocks 100 Days challenge using Tula Pink's City Sample book. It is being held on Instgram if you want to check it out. I have decided to use only my stash for this challenge and so far, so good. But, it has led to a lot of thinking while I am pulling fabrics and scraps from my stash and pressing them to be able to cut them.

Do you do that too? Let your mind wander while you cut and sew? I do much of my best thinking and soul searching at my machine or at my ironing board. Anyway, back to my question about too much stash.

 When I first started making quilts, around 1990, I would figure out a quilt to make, try to figure out how much fabric I needed and buy just that. I over estimated sometimes, and my stash was started, because I save everything. I kept all my scraps,no matter the size, in an old chest of drawers that traveled with me from house to house, state to state while my children were growing up.  They were all thrown in ther, jumbled together.

 Once we settled in North Carolina, I became more serious about quilting. I still mostly shopped for fabrics for specific projects, but for the first time, I lived near a local quilt shop. The proprietor would hold an anniversary sale every year, 35% off all cuts of 1/2 yard or more. That was when I really began buying fabrics I really liked just because. The second or third year of this sale, I remember a woman came into the shop while I was waiting to get my fabric cut, and left her credit card with the instructions that she wanted a half yard cut of ever single solid that was in the shop at that time. I was stunned! Do people do that?

I attended that anniversary sale every year for about 20 years, until sadly, the proprietor retired and closed the shop. But, beginning in 2010, I found the on line quilting community and I began to buy fabrics on line, that my LQS didn't have in stock, because, hey, there isn't room to stock everything, right? This was when quilting blogs were really ramping up in popularity and there were so many of them. They showed new lines and it really drew me in.

 There were tons of new designers, the colors were brighter, the Modern Quilting movement was really taking off. This spoke to me...loudly! I bought more fabrics without a plan, feeling a compelling need to build my stash.

 I would take breaks from buying, but inevitably a line would come out that I couldn't resist. I cleaned my sewing room. I reorganized my stash...multiple times. I seldom got rid of much. I couldn't bear to part with it.

 But then we move across the country and I purged, big time. I got rid of a big box of fabrics that I just new I would never use. Some just weren't my style any longer. I got rid of books and tons of other sewing things too, and tried to keep only what I really loved. It is still a lot of fabric.

 One of the things that working on this block challenge has done, is showed me bits and pieces of fabrics that have been around for years. Really. Ten years and sometimes longer. I thought I had gotten rid of most of those. I was happy to see some of them, and I was able to look at them and figure out a way to use them, when I hadn't been able to before, and that feels great to me. I put together combos that I might not have in the past. My style and tastes are still changing. This surprised me.

The other thing I noticed, and that was what led me to this post, is that some of my older fabrics have been folded in my stash for so long, that despite not being in direct sunlight, have faded along the fold lines. This too surprised me. I wondered how people who have much larger stashes than mine deal with this type of thing. Do they even know it is occurring? We tend to use our fabrics as decor in our sewing rooms, maybe this isn't a good idea.

I have learned from this experience that I truly do have more than enough fabric to last me for quite some time. I know I cannot live forever. But will I quit buying fabrics? Probably not. But I would like to continue with projects I can sew from my stash. It would be sad if all that pretty fabric went to waste.
If you feel compelled, comment here and let me know how you feel about your stash and how you take care of it. Is it big enough? Are you still adding to it? How do you try to use from it? And do you have any great stash busting quilt patterns that you have made and loved? I would love to know.
Talk to you soon.