August 2006 Issue
This month, Monica Moss, from Kalispell, Montana, asked,
"When you find a must-have fabric, how much do you generally buy, and how do you decide how to use it?"
Beth Hayes
Editor in Chief
If the must-have fabric has border potential, I'll buy a minimum of 3 yards, sometimes 4. More often than not, though, I'm simply drawn to a fabric because I love it. It may be a beautiful mottle or texture, and generally I'll buy just a yard.
|
 |
| I also get into phases where I collect just to collect, for instance, Asian fabrics. I'll often buy quarters or halves, simply to add to the Asian stockpile. I also can't resist beautifully coordinated fabric packs. They become neat colorful accessories in my sewing room! |
Ellie Brown
Art Director
I tend to buy more than I need and buy it because I love it, even if I don't have an immediate use for it. Invariably when I go to my stash to design a new quilt I feel the need to buy still more fabric to make the design really work. Never feels right unless I buy new fabric…(sigh)…now ain't that a shame?
|
 |
Sandee Wachal
Associate Editor
When I spot a must-have fabric, I mentally decide if it will be good to add to the mix of a scrap quilt or if it will work well for a future border. For scrap quilts, I purchase 1-1 1/2 yds. For a border fabric, I like to get at least 3-4 yds. so it can be used somewhere else within the quilt besides border and binding.
|
 |
Kathy Patterson
Assistant Editor
I'm a very cost-conscious quilter, and also have pretty limited storage space, so even if the fabric in question is to die for, I'll generally only buy a yard unless I already have a specific use in mind.
|
 |
| As for deciding how to use it once it's come home with me, I usually file it right away with my other fabrics of the same color family, and, each time I need a fabric of that color, decide whether it will work or not. |
Laura Stone Roberts
Contributing Editor
True confessions: about once a year I'm so enamored with a fabric and so many ideas are flooding my brain at once, that I buy the entire bolt. I've never regretted it, either, because the fabrics that hit me like that stay in my heart. I am so sad when that last little scrap is used up. Thank goodness I know there's more fabric to love in that next quilt shop!
|
 |
Lise Neer
Senior Designer
Since my quilts are mostly scrappy, I tend to shop indiscriminately. This entails roaming through the fabric shop, feeling and tasting all the great colors and combinations, and trying to remember which one(s) would fill the perceived hole in my stash.
|
 |
| For that one fabric I simply can't live without, the rule is to get at least 3 yards (most likely a habit from my clothes-sewing days). And there is one print I buy whenever I find it, because it makes such a great background and star prints ARE one of my favorites… |
Tricia Camp
Editorial Assistant
The only time I go out and buy fabric is for a specific project. Those "must-haves" are in 3 to 5 yard cuts (occasionally in bolts) and already fill half of my fabric room, so I guess my response to "how do you use them" is…
|
 |
| I place them over the cutting table, and I look at them, and I touch them, and—I keep them safe from harm by locking up my rotary cutters and fabric shears! |
Use browser's "back arrow" to return to Preview Index |
