Tales of a Fabric Scavenger

Spring is a wonderful time of year anywhere.  It's especially great here, because it's quilt show season.  I wait all year for this show, put on by the It's A Stitch Quilt Guild just about two weeks ago.  (BTW, all photos were taken by permission.)
It's not just the friendly faces or the amazing quilts or the variety of vendors that draw me, either.

I admit it, I'm a fabric scavenger!  I look for second hand fabric everywhere, and this is one of my favorite places.
Take a look at this!  This section of the quilt show is called Granny's Attic.  Laid out on all the tables are items donated by guild members.  Most of this stuff is fabric!  The prices are good, averaging about $3 to $4 per yard this year.  The money raised goes to local food pantries.

Here's my pile of loot after I got home.
I love scavenging for fabric.  I make lots of charity quilts, and the less the fabric costs, the more quilts I can make for needy kids and adults.
Plus it's just plain fun to search through piles of fabric.  It's like a treasure hunt!
Are you a fabric scavenger, too?  (I know this is not everybody's cup of tea.)

Before I went, I made a list of what I was looking for.  I am so easily distracted by fabric, I need some sort of guidelines.  This time I was looking for:  a) backing for kid quilts (check out the 4 yards of baseball flannel on the bottom); b) blue fabrics for borders and binding; c) other prints for borders and/or alternate blocks; d) light fabrics (always)
and...

novelty prints, my favorites!
When I come home from a scavenging expedition, the big pieces of fabric go right into the wash, and the smaller ones go to the sewing room to be trimmed and tamed.
This time, one of my items was a UFO.  I didn't wait to take a photo of it, I just opened up the plastic bag and started sewing.

This was the pattern in the package, the popular Take 5 quilt.  Most of the pieces were cut, but quite a few were cut wrong (not square), so I wondered if the person who had this first was maybe new to quilting.  There was enough fabric in the bag to cut more pieces to replace the wrong ones, thank goodness, and sewing the blocks together went very quickly.  I made a small quilt, with only 12 blocks.

Here's the finished quilt, on our fence next to the raspberry canes.
It's supposed to be arranged in a more or less random fashion, but I just couldn't stand it, I had to turn the blocks until they sort of chained across diagonally.  I am not good at random.

The fabrics chosen by the original quilter were great, colorful and fun.  There were over 2 yards of the bright yellow print in the package, which must have been meant for the border, but this fabric is even too bright for me in large doses, so I calmed the quilt down the with blue star print, which I also scavenged at the show.  The binding is the puzzle piece print from the kit.

The back is a school print I've had for ages.  It feels good to finally use it.  The quilt will go to a child who needs it.
I think the original quilter was going to make a much bigger quilt, so there are lots of pieces cut that I didn't use this time.  Never fear, they will go in the bins and will be perfect for something else.  So will the two yards of bright yellow print.

Check out the rhubarb!  The warm weather this week has really brought it around.  I'll probably be cutting it before June.
I'm wishing sunshine and fresh air and quilting for you this week.
Cheers,
Sylvia@Treadlestitches

 Linking up with Busy Hands Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, and Crazy Mom Quilts.