Stash Patrol – Working Out the Working Stash by Pulling out the Scrap!

I’ve had this on the ‘To Do’ list for awhile. I’ve been wanting to completely remove every little bit of fabric from this stash that is less than a fat quarter and get it cut up into useable pieces.

Here’s a look at what the stash looks like before I started my organization…

It’s not that bad. You can tell I’ve been ‘working’ it. Pieces have been moved around, re-folded, put back and so forth. It has been 2 and a half years since I took this next photo…

That was my stash back then. At the time of that post , I can totally see how my stash has evolved, been used and grown over the last few years! I’ve also completed several quilts during that time but now I think I’m at the point of max capacity. This is the space I’ve given myself to contain my quilting fabrics and now I need to pull out the smaller pieces, re-organize and evaluate.

Up top I have backings, patriotic, Christmas, the Angel fabrics I brought back from Mom’s and a smattering of miscellaneous (oh, that killer miscellaneous stuff…gotta do something with it!)…

Top shelf of the bookcase has my neutrals (I’ve been avidly collecting those ever since I started a few of Bonnie Hunter’s quilts), reds, yellows, browns, oranges…I suppose the ‘warm’ colors….

Middle shelf contains my greens, pinks, greys and black and whites…

The bottom shelf holds blues, teals and batiks…

After pulling out anything that didn’t belong I’m left with this!

Oh, it is so fun to PET a clean and organized stash!

Of course I still have to deal with a Halloween ‘Kit’ that isn’t in there yet. It is my only kit but not sure where that will go now. Hopefully that will get cut and into my in progress pile soon! As for all those smaller pieces…

I’ve got my work cut out for me now. I think an interesting challenge will be to see what I can do with this pile of pulled fabric.

So…I decided to sew up some 8 pointed star blocks to wet my whistle a bit. Would I like how these are coming out? All scrappy willy nilly? The ones on the left were my inspiration, I had made those earlier with scrap red white and blue. The ones on the right are the current ones…

Not bad. I think I will continue to play this week with these easy blocks. They go together very quickly and I think I can whittle this pile down fairly quickly! It is an interesting challenge to only use the scrap fabrics I’ve pulled out of the stash. I wonder how many of these blocks this stash will make?