Glorious multi coloured hand dyed fabrics bought from Ricky Tims in about 2016

Use your stash!!  I suspect most quilters have some fabric they are saving. Not ordinary fabric. The good fabric.  

The fabric that was expensive, hard to find, bought on holiday, designed by a favourite fabric designer, inherited from someone, or simply so beautiful that cutting into it feels slightly alarming.  (And my secret reason – because it was a bargain)

The full range of Fableism Sprout Woven fabrics – I just had to have it!

What exactly are we saving it for?  (Use your stash, Sheena!)

We tell ourselves we’ll use it for:

• the right quilt
• the perfect project
• something special
• when we’re “good enough” – come off it – we are all “Good enough” xx
• when we have more time
• when we know exactly what we’re doing

And sometimes the perfect project never arrives.

A curated fat quarter bundle – one of a pair which were a gift from a special friend. I have used one set!

Perhaps “something special” isn’t a project. Perhaps it’s simply the fact that we really like the fabric.

I understand why we do it, but really, just use your stash!

There are perfectly good reasons for keeping something precious. Sometimes we genuinely aren’t ready to use it. Sometimes a fabric has sentimental value. Sometimes we’re waiting until we have an idea worthy of it.

And that’s okay.

But there is a difference between choosing to keep something and being afraid to use it.

Hand dyed fabrics bought from Ricky Tims in about 2016

What are we actually afraid of?  (Well, I am afraid of this Ricky Tims fabric running – even though I have pre-washed it!)

Perhaps it’s wasting the fabric.

Perhaps we’ll cut it wrong.

Perhaps the quilt won’t be good enough.

Perhaps we’ll use it and then it will be gone.

And that last one is interesting. Because, of course, that’s what fabric is for.

Fabric is supposed to be cut.

We buy fabric knowing perfectly well that its ultimate destiny is to be attacked with scissors, and yet somehow the really lovely stuff becomes sacred.

What happens when we actually use it?

Using the good fabric doesn’t guarantee that the resulting quilt will be brilliant.  (See my post “What Makes a Quilt Finished“)

But it might lead somewhere unexpected.  If you have a piece of fabric you love but aren’t quite sure what to do with it, one of my on-demand courses might give you the nudge – or the technique – you need.

You might discover a new colour combination. Try a technique. Make something you wouldn’t otherwise have made.

And even if it doesn’t work?

You’ve learned something.

That’s much more valuable than having the fabric remain pristine in a cupboard.

So perhaps we need to stop waiting for the perfect quilt and give ourselves permission to use the fabric we love.

Not because we have to use everything. Not because keeping fabric is somehow bad. But because if we’re keeping something solely because we’re afraid we’ll spoil it, perhaps it’s time to take the scissors out.

I have a few pieces of fabric in my stash that I’ve been saving for years.  (Actually, more than a few!  I was shocked when I got them out to photograph them!)

I have absolutely no idea what they’re being saved for.

Bag of Art Gallery Pure Solids – with the shade card in there too!

Bag of Kona Solids – with the shade card in there too!

My stash of Janet Clare fabrics, mainly with a space theme.

Perhaps it’s time to find out.

Do you have a piece of “good fabric” you’re saving? And what are you saving it for?  I am saying this loud for you and for me – Use Your Stash!!