NC by the Numbers

This is what 40 lbs. of fabrics, patchwork and books looks like after it's been sorted and the fabrics measured, which I did. Hold onto your hats, pals. Altogether it's 163 different fabrics that add up to 103.25 yards. To give you some real-world perspective, that's close to the length of a football field (120 yards). When I tell you what that works out to cost-wise you'll probably tear up. I certainly did.

Before we get to that, let me tell you more about the fabric. All but two quarter-yard pieces turned out to be quilting cotton (the two oddballs are flannels), and most of the lot has designer names like Moda, Robert Kaufman, Mark Lipinski, Susan Winget and Maywood Studios. I would say the original owner went to quilt shops and shows to buy fabrics, which aside from the storage smell are in pristine condition. This person also loved fat quarters. I have tons of them in this lot.

There are a some batiks and funky prints, but it's mostly florals, tonals, holiday and juvenile prints. There's so much Christmas fabric I could probably make a quilt for every bed in the house with what I have now.

I actually like most of the holiday prints, too. The original owner had a wonderful eye for florals. There are about a dozen fabrics with enough yardage to work as backings.

Not sure what I'll do with eight yards of a mascot print from University of North Carolina, though. He's kind of cute, huh? Ha.

I also have nine yards of John Wolf's Chateau St. Maigrin decorator fabric, too. I priced that at $32.00 a yard new online, so this one piece is $288.00 worth of fabric. Which brings me to the value and cost figures. I will price the quilting fabric at $5.00 a yard, so that works out to $471.25, plus the decorator fabric = $759.25. I paid $15.00 for everything, which works out to a cost of around fourteen cents a yard. That makes this my biggest and best thrift haul to date.

I feel pretty humbled and privileged, actually. Fourteen is my lucky number, but I never imagined I would get this lucky. So now I have to seriously think about what to do with this beautiful fabric.