Stash Diving

In my last post, I mentioned that I was about to embark on a serious digging expedition into my stash to choose fabrics for several upcoming projects.  Well, I did just that.  For two days, I scoured my stash making quite a mess.  My son came to talk with me, and standing at my sewing room door, gasped at the sight of me and my creative fabric mess, asking me "exactly what happened in here?  Is this what you wanted or did something terrible happen?"  As you know, he's now a firefighter trained to look at disaster scenes, and I think he thought it was death-by-fabric.  (What a way to go!)  With a big smile on my face, I answered that all was well, and that I was quite fine and very happy.  Has this happened to you, too?  I wasn't brave enough to take a photo of the scene Ryan witnessed, but here's a picture of the my ordered, neatly stacked stash ready to go back into the closet.  (One of my favorite quilts hangs on the design wall.....Union Sampler, design by my friend, Evonne Cook of Clothesline Quilts.) 

Non-fabric lovers just don't see the love!  I probably spent a lot more time digging than I needed to, but I enjoyed the time I spent, getting reacquainted with some fabric pieces I've forgotten about.  Then, there are those fabrics that you are madly in love with.....that will always be among your all-time favorites.  Perhaps you bought a fat quarter, brought it home and thought ...gee...this is really wonderful!  I think I need more of this....so you go and buy yardage - enough to last your lifetime because you never want to run out.  I confess....I do this.  NOT ALOT, but I do. 

So....there's this fabric, you see...I really love it.  I have it in blue and love it in blue.  It also came in red.  I bought lots of the blue.  I pine for the red....I adore red fabrics & red quilts.  I want to make everything from red fabric....but I digress.    Every time I go to design something on EQ, I choose that red print for a border (at least I own a digital picture of it!)  I torture myself with this fabric, because I love it so much, and have none!  I'd hate to confess how many years I've pined for this fabric.  (Perhaps I shouldn't be confessing that I pine for fabric at all!  Oh well...I do!)  It's several years old and long gone.  A dear designer friend used this red fabric in one of her scrappy quilts.  Oh, it was so lovely....could she spare a scrap?  Don't go there....I told myself....a quilter's stash is sacred!! 

York County by J. Rothermel for Marcus

Well....guess what?  While emptying my stash closet I made the most amazing discovery! 

I don't remember buying this fabric and here I've owned it all along.  DUH!  And...I own yards of it!!  Yahoo!!!!  Where had it been hiding all of this time?  Well, I had pulled it along with several other "favorite reds" for a quilt I intended to make several years ago and set it off to the side.  In the meantime, new purchases (just a few) were stacked on top, in front, and buried my favorite red, and I forgot about it. 

Guess what fabric is going to be the border on one my new projects?!!!  Maybe now, I'll get it out of my system and move on.  Geesh, Pam....nothing like being obsessed!

Tomorrow, Saturday, July 23rd, I'm going to be at the Countryside Village shop in Braidwood, IL.  Please come and visit the shop and say hello if you have time.  I'll be there from 10am to 1pm and we'd love for you to stop in the shop, browse all of the shop goodies, and the fabrics of course!  I'll be giving my lecture, Making-Do ~ Honoring our Quilting Heritage, all about the history of Making-Do in quilting, and will be bringing all of my antique Make-Do quilts with me! 

I hope to see you there!  Thanks for visiting with me today....Pam