I recall the first phone call I got was from a guy who offered me his piles of old blue jeans if I wanted to cut them up, which was pretty depressing! But there were better phone calls after that.
A couple years ago a crafter friend who had gotten busy and changed direction cleaned out her craft room to my benefit. Another couple boxes.
I'm not in danger of "winning" (should I die right now, I would by no means have the most fabric) with only about... let's say... probably at max 20 cubic feet of stacked-up fabric. It's a good stash though! There's a variety of very useful large pieces.
Now the lady who gave me the Pfaff gave me a whole pile of quilting fabric. I guess she's been a quilter all her life. It's NICE quilt scraps, the quality stuff you buy at quilt shops and specialty places. There's also several pieces of pretty calico large enough for making a top or combining for a skirt.
I'm really having a blast looking through all this, just imagining all the possibilities.
It wasn't prewashed. I only put fabric on the shelf after washing it, that way I don't have to remember what's been washed and what hasn't: nothing comes up the stairs without being washed first. So all this new stuff's gotta be washed. It will be a bit of a job, it'll get twisted and tangled, and have to have strings snipped and some pieces get ironed. A fun job though, to do a little here and there as I pass by and have a moment.
The kids helped me shake out all the folded fabric last night. I'm so thankful for this! I can quilt my fool head off now.
I still don't see the good in cutting up perfectly good fabric only to sew it back together again. Quilting only attracts me if it's truly made from scraps. Half or most of the joy to my "scrounger" nature is to produce something pretty and useful from what would otherwise be wasted. So I just LOVE inheriting the 1/2-yard leftovers from someone else's lifetime of quilting.
