I have been quilting since 1968; I worked regularly in one quilt shop for over 20 years and still work in another occasionally. In that entire time, after meeting thousands of quilters, I have met 2 who bought fabric for the quilt they were constructing at that time, made the quilt, then bought more fabric for the next project. No casual purchasing because they might eventually need that color, no buying of novelty fabric for the nephew who's an expert at archery. Just one quilt at a time. Well. Needless to say, I find this practice astonishing, not because there's anything wrong with it, but because I can't imagine how it's possible. I buy fabric even when I'm trying not to; like a true addict, I can only avoid purchasing by not exposing myself to the temptation of a quilt shop.

Conversely, I sometimes hear a customer say, "Oh, just give me the whole yard; I'm trying to build up a stash." And while I am often grateful for the convenience of being able to work, at least partially, from a fabric stash that has been amassed over 40+ years, I always have to restrain my urge to run over and say, "No, no, don't do it! Save yourself while you can!" Because we all know that while a stash can be a wonderful resource, it can also get out of hand as fast as a pair of opposite sex rabbits. It's like a scientific experiment whose aim is to help mankind, but which then goes horribly awry and wreaks havoc on the universe or, in this case, one's studio.

Recently I was told of a quilter who said that her entire stash was contained in a Walmart bag, a tale that is met by peals of laughter every time it's repeated. The laughter is followed by incredulous questions: Was she serious? Did she laugh when she said it? Obviously this is not a true stash to most quilters. But how does one's fabric collection attain the status of "stash"? At exactly what point does it morph from random scraps that are too big to throw away into a stash? And how did it get so BIG?

The main culprits in stash generation seem to be leftovers and sales. Every quilter knows that you need a bit extra of each fabric that you purchase for a quilt, because the only time you make a serious cutting error is when you have just enough. (If on the other hand you have yards and yards of extra, you will be cutting with great precision and efficiency.) So there are a few leftovers from every quilt, usually too large to toss. And if you are of the give-me-more-than it-says-I-need school of fabric purchasing, you will have even larger leftovers. Either way, it's not really a problem because we all know that we can use those leftovers later in scrap quilts. If we don't make scrap quilts, we think we will in the future, and this belief seems to extend even to quilters who dislike scrap quilts.

Then there is the sale. We all love it, we all go, we all say we will only buy things we actually need. But what is it that makes fabric we hated look more attractive as the price decreases? It's no less ugly, nor any more likely to work well with other fabrics, than it was at full price yesterday. And knowing this, am I immune from the purchasing bug? Of course not. This is the quilting equivalent of that country/western song about all the girls looking better near closing time in the bar.

But aside from leftovers and sales, I'm convinced that our stashes grow in other, more mysterious ways. I'm sure there's some spontaneous generation going on somewhere, because every now and then I pull something from my stash that I've never ever seen. I'm present when anyone else might touch my stash, so it's not as if my quilting buddies (or elves) are sneaking extra fabric in. It has apparently just popped up, like Venus rising from the sea fully grown.

And what about sexual reproduction of fabric? There are tons of articles and books about color theory, but maybe that's all just a conspiracy to conceal the way we really get secondary colors. Need more orange fabric? Just put your reds and yellows together in a dark corner and 12 days later, viola!—more orange. So all this time when I've been carefully keeping my stash in a closed cupboard to avoid fading, I've really been encouraging to mate! No wonder it never seems to get any smaller!

Every now and then I try to reconfigure ("reconfigure" in this case being a euphemism for "increase") my stash space. The stash immediately fills it. It's not that I buy more to fill all the empty space; it's that the stash I ALREADY HAVE fills the new space. Of course, I can now get a finger or two between the pieces of fabric, an unaccustomed luxury, but that never lasts long. I do know of people who take over or add entire rooms for stash storage. One of my customers used to keep whole bolts of fabric in her second (unused) shower, which really only seems practical if you plan to never have guests.

Maybe the only way to keep control of one's stash is to NOT increase one's space. By refusing to enlarge it, perhaps one would be forced to get rid of some fabric before adding more. Maybe I need to actually decrease the space. Hmm…maybe the woman with the Walmart bag was right.

© 2011 Jane Hardy Miller

Comments

• 6. Charlotte (25 September 2011 at 10:15 a.m.)

  Loved your article. Last year I decided to reorganize my sewing room ( 9x8 extra bedroom)to create more space. I ended taking everything out so I could move the furniture around, and what I took out ending up filling our bedroom and guest room. It just Exploded! Took me 6 weeks to tame it all and put it back. I did create more space, but now I have filled it up again with more stuff. I am afraid to reorganize again, we may have to buy a new house....
  
  

• 5. Denise Scalon (17 July 2011 at 4:53 p.m.)

  Well,I had more boxes with a label "sewing stuff" then everything else when we moved back...and I needed to rent a room at a business building because there is no room for that at home...Thanks God, here there is no quilting shops like in USA, and the snail mail is not the same. Looking foward to go to Texas!!
  
  

• 4. Chris in UT (17 July 2011 at 1:11 p.m.)

  Thanks for the chuckles, ladies! Perhaps the question is not, "Will we ever learn?", but rather, "Why would we want to?"
  
  

• 3. Carla (17 July 2011 at 11:06 a.m.)

  I have been quilting for 10 years. My husband & I just moved to a new home. My "quilting" boxes far outnumbered my "kitchen" boxes. I guess I have a VERY LARGE stash!!!
  
  

• 2. Bobbi (Miami sometimes) (17 July 2011 at 10:15 a.m.)

  I went fabric shopping this week with a woman like your first example. She is making a quilt, will finish it beautifully, but refused to buy any fabric that didn't work with this project. She was also appalled at the number of pieced quilt tops in my closet, AND the number of finished quilts "without a purpose." IMHO, she's missing three-quarters of the joy of quilting.
  
  

• 1. Linda in TX (17 July 2011 at 9:41 a.m.)

  Oh Jane. I do love your blarticles. There are 4 of us who quilt together - and shop together. One of us (who is actually one of those immediately gifted needle talents) used to buy only what she needed for her current project, finish that quilt, choose another project and buy only what she needed for that one. And so on. Amid peals of laughter (AT her - not with her), we pointed out that this was immoral, wasted time, senseless, and bad for the economy. We finally won her over and now she shops with us like a hero. I, too, believe that my stash mates at night (just like wire hangers) - altho I recognize most of what I have. I just don't think I bought so much of it. I used to buy fat quarters. Then one yards. Then three yards. Now apparently I have moved quite easily to six yards if I really like it and it's on sale. Ten yards if it's a really good sale. You can always use a good back. (and I have my fabric in open bins just to see if I can catch 'em at it)
  
  

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