Stash Buster No. 1

Quilt Completed February 2022

Quilt cat, Mimi, who inserts herself into ALL of my quilting projects!!!

When I started quilting back in 2011, I didn’t have a fabric stash. So I began collecting fabric at in-person quilt shops, online shops, at classes and retreats. But instead of using my fabric right away to sew patterns into quilts, I just kept buying fat quarters, half yards, precuts and yardage. When it came time to pack up my sewing room to move from Houston to Chicago in June of 2021, I was confronted with reality - I had amassed a fairly impressive stash of quilting fabric!!

In our new place in Chicago, my sewing room is quite different from my sewing room in Houston - a lot more open shelving and less cupboards and drawers. This means that I see ALL my fabric any time I’m in my sewing room or walking by it. And while I love the array of colors and patterns of my collection, I have a lot of fabric - so there’s really no need to continue adding to my stash (unless I cannot simply resist!).

That’s when I decided to challenge myself - use up, sew up, quilt up the fabric I have instead of buying more fabric. But I wanted to make quilts that were easy, fun and fast. So I turned to YouTube, specifically one of my favorite quilters/YouTubers, Karen Brown from Just Get It Done Quilts. She has so many useful tips for quilting, organizing, approaching projects and she’s so reasonable and friendly. And sure enough, when I went to her YouTube channel and searched her videos, she had some quick and easy Stash Buster videos.

Here are pictures from my first Stash Buster quilt that I made following one of Karen’s videos (The link for this tutorial is here: Quilt-In-A-Day Stash Buster). I used up eight-ish fat quarters and some yardage in the span of about three days (I took breaks rather than trying to complete the entire project in one day like Karen Brown does in her video).

Layout of quilt blocks before stitching them together.

Closeup of binding

Completed quilt front view. I pulled yardage from my stash for two coordinating borders. I machine quilted the quilt sandwich with simple wavy lines on my domestic sewing machine.

Back of quilt using up remaining quilt blocks, extra fabric from fat quarters that weren’t used for quilt blocks, extra border fabric and coordinating backing fabric - also from my stash. I’m very pleased with the final result and am feeling great about making a dent in my stash! Onto the next Stash Buster!!!

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