How to Shop Your Stash
“I always tell myself I’ll shop my stash first, but I don’t even know where to start.” -common refrain heard at my quilt shop
If you love the fabric in your stash, but tend to get overwhelmed when trying to figure out how to use it, you’re in the right place. Today, I’m going to share my best tips for using some of what you already have to keep fabric and projects flowing through your sewing room.
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If you are a passionate fabric collector, knowing what you have and how to mix and match with something new to make it feel fresh can feel like a whole thing. Add in trying to meet quilt pattern requirements, and it’s easy to become overwhelmed. Today, I’m going to do my best do demystify and simplify this process for you. Let’s get started!
It’s important to remember that the goal of stash busting or shopping your stash is not to use up absolutely everything in your sewing room. Rather, we want to keep projects and supplies flowing through our sewing rooms— kind of like we all tend to keep some basics in the pantry, but we don’t want anything to sit in there too long. In fact, I like to think about stash busting a little like how I make a grocery list: I start by cleaning all the past-date food out of the fridge— this is a bit like the destashing we talked about in this article. If it’s not going to bring you joy, then it doesn’t need to stick around.
Next, I consider things that have been hanging around a minute in order to make a meal plan: “We have black beans and rice in the pantry, cumin and paprika and tortillas in the cupboard, steak in the freezer, and peppers and onions in the fridge— we could make fajitas tonight, and I don’t even have to go to the store.” Or I might think: “I have noodles and sauce in the pantry, if I pick up some broccoli and Italian sausage, we could have a pretty easy pasta night.”
Both of these are “stash busting” as I grocery shop, but only one uses exclusively items I already have.
Keeping this analogy in mind, let’s look at several ways to shop your fabric stash.
Video
The Whole Enchilada
When I say “shop your stash,” you most likely thought about how you could make an entire quilt, start to finish, from your stash. Most of us have enough fabric on hand to do this a few times over, but I frequently hear from folks that they get a little stuck knowing where to start or how to make fabrics from different collections go together. Let’s take it step by step:
First, you need to create some “rules” or boundaries. I recommend choosing a pattern first (choosing one from your stash also counts as stash busting!). Then you’ll know how many different colors you’ll need and how much yardage of each. Create a second rule by choosing a color palette (you can use fabric swatches like the ones I made from a color card here). For my scrappy Star Island quilt, I chose navy, gold, cream, and teal.
Pull out all the fabrics of each of those colors from your stash and put them on a big table where you have good light.
Color by color, start to pick out fabrics that you think will look good together in a quilt. If you don’t have single cut pieces that meet the requirements of the pattern, choose 3-4 for a good scrappy look (I recommend alotting 1/4-1/2 yard of extra fabric when going scrappy since cutting will be less efficient. You can read my full tips on scrappy quilts here). If you love scrappy, don’t be afraid to raid your scrap bin for some pieces too!
Look at the fabrics you’ve chosen for your quilt tops separate from the rest of the piles to make sure you like them together, then set aside.
While you have all that fabric out, go ahead and pull more pieces for a pieced backing and binding. If you pull from the same color families as your quilt top, everything will go together brilliantly!
(The sample quilt above is Star Island—get the pattern here)
Mix and Match
This option is really fabulous if you have a smaller stash, you want to work with scraps, or you’re just really itching to add a little something new into the mix.
As always, I recommend making sure you choose a pattern and a color palette first. Knowing how much yardage you need and what colors you want to work with creates so much focus
Decide what areas or pieces of the quilt you want to make from your stash, and what areas or pieces you want to shop for. Backgrounds, sashings, cornerstones, and borders are really excellent candidates for shopping— a big cut of a solid or otherwise coordinating fabric can add a sense of order and freshness to an otherwise scrappy quilt. It’s also fun to add one color to the quilt that you don’t usually work with, and thus may not have in your stash. Choose the other fabrics/colors from your stash, but go shopping for that one, new, fun thing
For this Polaris Quilt, I knew I wanted to use scraps and leftover fat quarters for the star points. I even had a leftover piece of yardage for the cornerstones. But with all that scrappiness, I felt a solid, consistent background would create a more unified effect, so I bought a fresh piece of solid-reading Everyday Chambray for the background (You can see what Fableism fabrics we currently have in the shop here. We also carry the full line of original PBS Solids here and their new solids here)When you head to the store, be sure to bring all the fabrics you chose from your stash. This will make it easier to choose that final color/ piece and to make sure you like how everything looks together. Getting to help you pick the final piece of the puzzle is literally your local quilt shop’s favorite thing to do (at least it’s ours at String & Story on Main!)
Once again, while you’re digging in your stash, go ahead and see if there’s something you have or can piece for the backing and binding
(The pattern above is Polaris— get the pattern here)
Get it Done
Sometimes we just want to buy the new fabric, thank you very much, and that is AMAZING! For these projects you can stash bust a little differently: choose a pattern you already have, work with thread that’s been sitting in a drawer, or, when you get to the final stages of your project, shop your stash for frankenbatting, a backing, and/ or binding!
Closing Thoughts
It is a fun creative challenge to plan a whole quilt from fabric you already have, but not every project has to be made entirely from stash. Incorporating something from your stash into most of your projects is a fabulous way to keep things from getting stagnant in your sewing room without having to put a moratorium on all fabric purchasing. Build a habit of checking the pantry before you head to the store, and you’ll never have to feel guilty for having a stash or buying the new pretties.
Resources
PATTERN: The first example above (“The whole enchilada”) is Star Island. Get the pattern here
PATTERN: The next example (“Mix and match”) is Polaris. Get the pattern here.
Summer Stash Busting 2023 full lineup
BLOGS: The other place I see folks get stuck is with being unsure about mixing prints together. I wrote an entire series on choosing fabrics and working with prints that you can check out here
BLOG: We talk a lot about scrappy quilts, but we’re all a little afraid of them looking like fabric puke. Check out my favorite tips for making any pattern scrappy (and loving it) here.
BLOG: Solids and other basics are ideal for mixing in with fabric chosen from your stash both to give it a fresh feel and to keep all those prints from feeling too rowdy. We carry a lot of solids at String & Story and have a lot of tips for how to shop online if you’re not local to visit us in person. Read all the tips here
FREEBIE: The Quilting Rockstar Set List is a perfect way to organize your works in progress. Download it for free here:
