I think just about every quilter I know has a stash. Some have it neatly arranged on shelves. Some have it in bins. Some have yardage, some have precut sizes, but it seems like all of us have a lot of fabric waiting for an opportunity. I’m no exception. I’ve been seriously quilting almost 30 years now, so there’s a rather sizable stash. I mentioned in another post that I misplaced a 9 YARD PIECE OF FABRIC. How does one lose 9 yards of fabric???? That’s a lot of fabric to misplace. (I have since found it in a box where I did not expect it to be).

Lately I’ve been considering this situation a lot. My taste in fabric and my style of quilting is really going through a huge shift right now. One of the key points I have discussed before is how scrappy things are going. Ultra scrappy. Scrappy to the extreme. Scrapilicious! To do that, I don’t necessarily need lots of yardage, what I need is lots of variety. LOTS of variety. I stand and look at my fabric stash and end up cutting a little bit off of a lot of pieces, so I’ve come to a HUGE decision.

I am going to eliminate the current stash I have and turn it into a precut stash. I have evaluated the ongoing projects I have, and everything can be worked out of 1.5″ and 2.5″ strips or 5″ squares. So I’m going to go through my entire stash, and cut these preset sizes off of each piece, and put the rest of the stash in a donation pile. Then I will sort the precuts into light and dark bins.

I know this is not going to happen over night. My goal is to cut a little bit every day rather than try to tackle it all at once. I also want to go through and make sure there isn’t anything else to add – maybe a 2″ strip would be wise. At the end of this, my goal is to have my stash in a very manageable state that will fully support my projects, rather than a huge disaster that makes it difficult to find anything. It will certainly take up less space than it does now.

I’m learning how to be mindful in a lot of areas of life and it’s time to start being mindful with my stash.