I hear it over and over again that we quilters just want to use up a fraction of our stash...but, then...it is hard not to be a hero!  You ask what is heroic about building a stash???  Well, a fellow quilter shared this piece of philosophy with me and I am passing it on...

                 "I went to a fabric shop and liberated some bolts...so, I'm not a hoarder...I'm a hero!"

I love this and I feel awesome when I buy fabric now...hero sounds so much better than hoarder, LOL. With that said I finished 2 quilts tops at retreat last week by using awesome big block patterns.  One was called Turning Twenty and the second one was called Between Friends.  You could buy yardage if you wanted to make these quilts but I chose the stash buster route!  And it was sooooo satisfying.  

There are other ways to bust that stash so you can add some new fabrics!  Yes, you could start gifting fabric to your quilting friends (they may groan when then see your gift)...or...you could do what my friend Cakers does, which is make reversible quilts.  It is hard to make a reversible quilt if you are the type of quilter that needs to have every thing matchy matchy.  I have heard over and over that scrap quilts are not stash busters because you tend to buy fabric to add for a specific look and sometimes you end up with more fabric than when you started.  But, Cakers has solved the problem by making reversible quilts that are entirely different.  The front does not match the back!  

The thing I love about her quilts are she doesn't fret if she runs out of sashing fabric...she just adds a new element.  And her back are always pieced and never match the front. How liberating!!!

Yes, this Hawaiian quilt is on the back of the quilt made with Marcia Derse fabrics. How wonderful to one day be sleeping under one quilt and then decide you want to dream about the island vacation and so flip it over. I really think she has something going here that could really be the answer to creating more space for new fabrics!  What do you think?  Would you put an entirely different quilt on the back of your quilt???