Scraps Lot Bags & Numbers

Here are some pics of the fabrics I found inside four of the ten bags that came with my scraps lot, which I measured last night.

I measured only the scraps that were at least 1/8 yard or larger, so there were plenty of strips and trims that I didn't measure.

The total yardage of the 117 fabrics I received that were 1/8 yard or bigger was 44.25, which includes fifteen one-yard pieces and two 2-yard pieces.

I paid a total of $32.07 including shipping for the lot, so that works out to seventy-two cents a yard.

Looking carefully through the entire lot made me almost positive that it originally belonged to a quilter. Aside from the two flannels everything else is quilting cotton. The scraps in the bags are sorted by color, holidays or are the kind of assortments you'd find at a quilt show. The cut fabrics are in patchwork-suitable blocks. Also, none of the fabrics have been laundered, which is typical of quilters. I'm really pleased with the value, too.

I have more than enough scraps now for the project I want to make, so this really will be the last lot of thrifted fabric I buy for this year and possibly next. I have one more Goodwill auction lot on the way that is a mystery embroidery lot, so stayed tuned to see what I find in that.

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Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Valerean

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