*scratches head* I need to take better notes on things that I buy and stash.
I quilt. I love quilting. I also sew some clothing, but quilting is my first love and the reason I learned how to use a sewing machine. The problem with being a quilter is that you tend to buy and hoard fabrics when they’re available, because they might be perfect for a project you have planned a few years from now…or would be great in a scrap quilt in shades of blue…or any other justification that you can cough up to buy fabric and store it somewhere in your house. It’s a very specific variation on pack rat tendencies that people have at any garage sale, flea market, or thrifts tore. You don’t have any use for it right now, but you just might, and so you have no choice but to buy it and put it away until you need it. Of course. Ahem.
I try not to, but I must confess that I do stash fabrics. So thanks to this, I have what looks like two or three yards of cream-colored white cloth with a tiny floral print, and no recollection of what I could have bought it for. Or when. I must have had a project in mind for it, even if it was on sale. I can’t imagine buying something so bland without an intended purpose.
Thinking back on it, the fabric probably came from a garage sale I hit near Syracuse about four years ago. My dad noticed a classified ad in the local paper advertising a sale of fabric, quilt books, and other supplies. I’m not one bit a morning person, but for this, I got my butt out of bed at 7 AM.
The garage sale consisted solely of craft supplies, and was probably 95% quilting items. The main seller was a woman in her 80s who had quilted for years, and now had arthritis bad enough that she had to give it up. She decided to sell of all of her things, not having anyone to pass them down to.
She was thrilled to see me there, and surprised that someone as young as I am had taken up quilting. (She should have met me when I was nine. I knew I wanted to quilt then, but sort of made it up as I went along. That didn’t turn out well.) I walked out with a few books, three amazing quality wooden hoops, yards of fabric (most of which is older than I am) and bags of scrap pieces. I still squeal with delight a little when I go through the stash from that sale. It had to be a once in a lifetime experience…usually craft materials that people decide to get rid of are junk.
Now that I have all of my fabric, supplies, and half-finished projects here I’m trying to finish off old projects. I have hundreds of pieces cut and at least a dozen blocks finished for a queen-size Dresden Plate quilt, so of course now I can’t find the friggin’ container of blocks. I’m hoping it didn’t go in the wrong box when I was packing up my bedroom. I also have four different baby quilts in different phases of done-ness. Gr.
