The Fabric Stash

Work has kept me away from personal tasks all week, but I have been able to take some time today to get some small projects started around the house.  Last week I purchased two of those marvelous magnetic curtain rods to use on the french doors in the sun room and I put them up today with bright white voile sheers.  My old house had all cream trim but this house is all bright white so I'm working on new window treatments.  The sheers are just about an inch too short, so I thought the best thing for me to do was unpack the quilting stash to see if there is any cute fabric that I could use to create a ruffle at the bottom of the sheers to extend them a bit and add some character.

What is even better than stashing craft supplies is when you rediscover your stash after you've been away from it for a while.  You get to appreciate all that loveliness without spending a penny, and you see even more possibilities than the first time around.  About 3 years ago, I packed up the bulk of my fabric and put it in storage.  Today I got to see it all again when I unpacked the boxes and filled up my quilting cabinet.  There's a ton of home dec fabrics too, but I saved those for another day and another cabinet.

Fat quarters and yardage and strips and scraps, oh my!  Pardon the lousy photo - I can't find my cord for my camera and I keep forgetting to order a new one.

How do you store your fabric?  I have a nifty fat quarter pile - these are mostly simple prints that I bought on eBay when I first started building my stash.  Then I have a lovely pile of yardage that is just organized by color and finally there is a pile that contains collections that I want to keep together.  One photo box has squares and the other has scraps and strips.  I am kind of surprised it seems so small when I see it here.  Not shown are a couple of plastic sweater boxes that contain coordinating yardage to do specific quilts and I want to keep those items stored together.  I have one sad box that contains a lovely hunk of blue and yellow and white teapots that I was going to make into a lap quilt for my mom but I never started it.  Now that she's gone, I might make it for my sister instead or I might make it and donate it somewhere.  I really wish I'd done it for her so she could have been wrapped in love from me.  It made me very sad to unpack that fabric today and I hate to have regrets.

Most of my fabric stash has not been washed.  Do you wash yours as it comes in, or as you prepare to start a project?  I guess I'm just being lazy by not washing it right away.  My other concern at the moment is that none of this fabric is what I was hoping to find to improve the length of my sheers!  I wanted something in pink and aqua and pale green, or at least two of those colors and I need more than a fat quarter.  I may just have to break down and visit the local quilting shop tomorrow - it's important to support local businesses right?  ;)

Hope you enjoyed the small view into my stash.  I keep opening the cabinet door to look - its inspiring to see it all again after so long!