A Little Stash goes a Long Way!

There have been so many beautiful quilts that have gone thru my studio that I have not shared or I waited so long to share that I forgot who made them. I keep making blog posts in my mind that never get as far as the keyboard. I can’t even make a New Years resolution about it because I know I will have a hard time keeping it. That being said I hope you brought in the New Year happy and healthy.

The thing I keep thinking about is there are a lot of beautiful quilts waiting to be made from your stash; yes your stash! I have tried to make it my mission to encourage you to use your stash thru my recent Scrap Sewciety BOM and various scrap quilts I have made. I feel we needlessly buy too much fabric. We laugh about our stash and we hide it from husbands, frankly we buy too much fabric instead of working and playing with what we already have. An out of control stash is most quilters “dirty little secret”.

I want to share the tale of some 2″ squares. Gillian a long time friend and customer is famous amongst our friends for making “something from nothing”. One day on a quilt drop off she gifted me a plastic shoe box, much like the picture below. The bottom was covered with a layer of 2″ squares placed sideways end to end, completely organized. Wow! Into my stash it went!

A few years later I found a tutorial on Pinterest and made this quilt! During the making of the quilt I kept asking myself “why am I working with someone else’s stash when I have my own dirty little secret”. I scolded myself because I already feel I am not going to live long enough to use all my stash.

There is a closeup of the binding (from stash) that worked beautifully.

While this is in the works another customer admires it on my design wall. Ruth is becoming a great scrappy quilter, she always analyzes her fabric choices carefully. The next thing you know
Ruth is going home with all the left over squares of fabric. She shows up a few months later with a quilt that looks like mine but she has mixed in some of her own stash. We quilted it with an edge to edge pattern called Diagonal Plaid. I like this pattern more than what I put on my quilt.

Ruth comes back to pick up her finished quilt and gives me the leftovers back.

Meanwhile back to where it all began Gillian showed up to have this quilted, it appears that before she gifted me, Gillian mixed the squares with denim, knowing Gillian — up cycled denim — something from nothing!

If you are looking to be gifted a small bag of squares, PLEASE contact me I have a stash problem!. LOL

Happy New Year Everyone — Keep playing with your stash!