The Thrifting Way

Six months ago I began seriously thrifting, focusing first on fabric from local shops and online auction sites. I never expected to find what I did, and it changed my attitude toward thrifting a lot.

Nine lbs. of quilting panels from a bag I thought was just random fabric taught me that there are all kinds of surprises in store for the thrifting maker.

I was pretty stunned by the quality of much of the antique linens I thrifted, too. This is hand stitching history.

Then I started seeing how I could thrift almost anything I needed, like this $70.00 jacket that still had the tags on for less than ten bucks.

Yarn that was too expensive at the craft stores suddenly became affordable via thrifting.

So did journals.

I even found some treasures among the fakes.

Thrifting didn't always pan out in my favor, like one of the online auction quilts I bought that shredded from dry rot as soon as I washed it. That taught me that you can't judge condition by a photograph, and thrifting will always be a little bit of a gamble. But I seem to have a good eye for things that are real bargains, and a pretty good streak of luck going.

I don't expect everyone to do as I did in 2023, but I hope you will consider thrifting something instead of buying new. Even if it's just a flower vase or a picture frame, you'll save money and keep useful things out of landfills. That's always good.

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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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