Print Stash, and Projects Status

One of my friendly blog-readers asked me if I would share pictures of my fabric stash. (Thanks, Becky P.!) I said I would and then looked at the condition of my closeted piles. Ugh! They were messy. So after about an hour's worth of tidying, I am glad to share these pictures. 

These prints are in a cabinet, stored behind closed doors. Each shelf is 11" high, and 26" across the front. 

These two shelves in the sewing room closet are 23" across the front, and from the bottom shelf to the top shelf measure 26." 

Mind you, these are only prints. My solids stash is separate.

Does this seem like a lot of prints to you? Do you have a bigger print stash than me? Quilters want to know!

I'm finding it extremely difficult to work with these print pieces because 80% (85%?) of them are less than a fat quarter in size. Every single piece has been cut into. No pieces are "new" and uncut.

Still, my 2026 (and beyond) goal is to not buy fabric. Keep sewing with what I have. IF I should succumb to a fabric purchase, it will likely be a solid, or a print that's needed to complete a project. 

I'm not sharing a picture of the three shelves of solids, directly above the print shelves in the first picture. They are still in their messy state.

Last Saturday I attended Sherri Lynn Woods' free Scrap Play workshop on Zoom. It gently tugged me from my sewing funk. It also got me to dump out two bins of solid scraps that I determined to work with. Some of the scraps had been previously sewn and cut away from something else, so I tried to use as many of those pieces as I could. I spent considerable time ironing!

Sherri had us piece improv nine-patch blocks, and gave us a couple prompts. The first was to make a nine patch using only dark values.

It was okay to make a block that was nine-patch-ish, and include a HST, if we happened to have one. Then we were to make a nine-patch using all light values with one dark (bottom).

After the workshop I continued to sew. In my orphan block bin I found some already-pieced HSTs, and from my scraps I sewed more HSTs too. Now, how do I make those nine-patch blocks work with the HSTs?

When I look at that hot mess on my design wall, I wonder how to jigsaw pieces together! I've pulled out Sherri Lynn's book Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters to see what I can come up with. My first inclination is to grab a black and white stripe print and start working it into the design. Or maybe I should piece black and white fabrics to make my own improv strips and checkerboards.

In the past few days I quilted my Sunny Lanes quilt with free-motion swirl hooks. It's my go-to FMQ design when I know I'm going to donate the quilt, and want to get it done on the quick.

Still, my happiest time each day is sitting down to work on my braided rag rug. Thus far, it's about 33" X 43" and will definitely get bigger. 

I'm braiding with 14 fabric strands now. 

The rug has a nubby texture with its combination of t-shirt knits; poly-cotton, and knit bed sheets; poly men's dress shirts; canvas fabric (leftover from bag-making); a damask tablecloth; and four-way stretch knit (leftover from making leggings). I love it! 

  

Linda