Celebrate the Stash

Yesterday, I had a terrific Stash Enhancing eXperience.  The Wisconsin Museum of Quilts & Fiber Arts has their annual fabric and fiber rummage sale this weekend, and in a phrase I learned from my dad, I "made out like a bandit".  I took my cart, the one I use at the Farmers Market, and filled it to the brim.

Like all Stash Enhancing eXperiences, it was so much fun.  I tossed gallon bags of fabric into my cart with gleeful abandon.  As you can see, I was focusing on bright colors and novelty fabrics.  A small amount of wool and cotton yarn also came home with me.

The photo above shows the fabrics after they have been washed and folded.  Not pictured are a seven yard piece for backing and a four yard piece of heavier cloth for grocery bags, which are still churning through the laundry.  That cart was FULL.

Lucky me!  More fabric!  Through the Hands 2 Help Challenge, I won a gift certificate to the Fat Quarter Shop.  I added a little money of my own, and bought all these great fabrics on Clearance.  (Check out the hedgehogs!)

I do not feel guilty about either of these buying sprees!  When I wash and fold these fabrics, I feel joy.  When I add them to the rest of my stash, and eventually press and cut and sew them, the joy continues.  And when I make a quilt for someone else, I pass that joy on.

I do not feel any need to destash just for the sake of destashing.  I do plan on doing more of what librarians call "weeding".  Any fabrics I know I won't use or can't use will be passed on to someone else.  And that also goes for UFOs that no longer lift my heart to look at them.

When am I going to stop buying fabric?  Never!

Climbing down from the soap box now, sorry.

Here's what I did with some of my dark blue stash this week.

Zigzag rows for my Project 1, Rainbow Scrap Challenge.
Each of these rows is 64 in. long, which is tough to photograph.  (Do you see the hedgehog fabric?  I'm already using it.)
Weirdly, it just occurred to me this week to do the math on this quilt.  Oops!  I already have more rows than I would need for a twin sized quilt, which was my goal.  And we haven't even done all the colors yet!  I think there are going to be two zigzag quilts instead of one.

In other news, I finished this donation quilt.

The four patches are made from bright fabrics and squares cut from a Laurel Burch jungle print.

Here it is outside, with Little Buddy's lawnmower.

Don't you just love these cats?  And the zebra, of course!

Here's the back, a butterfly print with an orange strip to make it wide enough.

The fabrics for this quilt were selected and cut by Colleen, a friend on the Charity Quilt Committee of my local guild.  I decided on the arrangement and did the sewing and quilting.  I added the orange fabric for cornerstones and the orange binding and the strip on the back.
Orange, I just can't quit you!
But I love working with dark blue, too.

This week, I'm wishing you the joy of fabric.  Celebrate the stash!
Cheers,
Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with
Angela at So Scrappy
Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Myra at Busy Hands Quilts 
Cynthia at Oh Scrap