Skip to main content

Stashed

In the thrifted fabric lots I sometimes find things I don't expect. In the 40 lb. lot from North Carolina I discovered the original owner's floral applique UFO, a big book of cross stitch designs, and some double-sided fusible material. What was NC thinking of making?

I find oddball things, too, like this brand-new pretty pot holder. I suppose it can go with the brand-new kitchen towels from that earlier lot.

NC was a sportsfan, or maybe their spouse was; is this a game day banner in the works? It's over eight feet long. Go Panthers!

A few of the patchwork pieces I found sewn from holiday fabric suggest NC was making quilted stockings at some point, too.

I can sometimes date the lots, too; this one goes back to at least 2018. The storage smell suggests it was kept for a few years before being donated. I never like thinking an original owner died and their family donated their fabric, but because there's so much in this lot that a quilter would never give away (including some sizeable yardage) that might be what happened.

Whether NC is alive or left for the next place, I'm awed by their stash, and will make sure it gets into the right creative hands.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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.
Post a Comment
Read more

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
Post a Comment
Read more

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.
Post a Comment
Read more