Category Archives: shopping

I Didn’t Mean to Buy More Fabric

I didn’t mean to buy more fabric…

Today I went to the local big box fabric and crafts shop with a seemingly harmless objective. I wanted to buy a little tube of gear grease for my vintage sewing machine. She is very much in need of some long-overdue scheduled maintenance. This turned out to be a much more elusive goal than anticipated. They didn’t have any gear grease. I guess people don’t service their own machines anymore or maybe modern sewing machines don’t need grease? For whatever reason, I could not find it. I was then faced with the formidable challenge of getting out of the store without buying any more fabric. This made me think about why I buy so much fabric in the first place. Here are my primary challenges:

  • A great idea – Many times, a certain print of fabric will jump out at me. “This would make a great (fill in the blank)”. Whether I actually need or want that thing is another question entirely.
  • I was once looking for this – Often times, a fabric will jump out at me, “Remember when you were looking for me before?” Something I had wanted for a previous project and never found is now right there in my hands. The fact that I’m now done with that project, usually by finding some substitute for what I had wanted at the time, is largely irrelevant when you are face to face with something you had desperately wanted at some previous time.
  • It’s on sale – I have to admit, this one rarely motivates me. My capacity for spending money on fabric is pretty high now that I’m a fully grown adult with a day job. I no longer need to scrimp and save like I did when I was in college trying to make a full-length wool coat for job interviews for less than $5 per yard.
  • Stinkin’ cute – This one gets me much more than I’m willing to admit. I have no idea at the time what this fabric could be used for but it’s just so darned cute I have to have at least a yard of it. Years ago, my BFF fell prey to this scheme when there was a line of Coca-Cola fabric seemingly everywhere. She bought a bunch of it, took it home and thought “What am I ever going to do with a bunch of Coke fabric?!”. Fortunately, I had been an avid fan of Coke for decades, so she made me a Coke apron which I still use to this day.

I did successfully make it out of the big box store without buying anymore fabric, although I can’t say the same for the yarn section!

The Rewards of Shopping Local


Everyone loves online shopping: it’s so easy, convenient, and you get exactly what you want showing up at your doorstep. It would be naïve to say we should refrain completely from online shopping – we are just not going to be able to put that toothpaste back in the tube. We should, however, be aware of our choices and make a conscious effort not to forget about local businesses that make up our communities. Not only do these local businesses rely on us for their survival, but their survival benefits us as well. Let’s think about how:

  • Local businesses are owned and operated by our friends, our neighbors, our kid’s best friend’s parents – all people in our communities. These people represent “the little guys”. Big online retailers and megalithic marketplaces are already getting enough tax breaks and other incentives, its up to us to help the Little Guys buy supporting them with our dollars.
  • Money spent locally in our communities goes back into local economies and helps us, too. When we spend our money in a Local Quilt Shop, that business pays taxes to our towns. That money goes to school, roads, police and other local services in our towns – all making our lives better.
  • Shopping local is much more fun and interactive than sitting behind a keyboard. In a time when “working from home” is all the rage, shopping local enables the chance to get to get out of the house, talk to other people, and learn about new patterns and projects you otherwise wouldn’t have.
  • Local Quilt Shops have many unique products you would never find online, items ranging from beautiful hand-dyed materials to tools and accessories made by local artists.

Now get out of your pajamas and make a trip to your Local Quilt Shop. You will be glad you did!

How to Save Money at the Quilt Shop

How to save money at the quilt shop

The most obvious way to save money at the quilt shop may to be to simply not go there when it’s open, but how much fun is that? Here are some more realistic ways you can save money at the quilt shop.

  • Make a List … and stick to it. If you are shopping from a list, you can avoid impulse buys such as all those “just so pretty I had to have it” fabrics.
  • Just Hold It … for a little while. I read about his technique once in reference to shopping for clothing and to my surprise I have applied it to fabric with much success! The idea is that if you see something you really, really love, just pick it up and carry it around the store while you look at other things. Walk it around the store as long as you have to until the realization of “what am I really going to do with this?” takes hold. Eventually, you will realize it’s just a passing infatuation and you can set it back down where you found it. Sometimes, just “owning” it for a little while is all that you need.
  • Cash Only – If you bring a finite amount of cash into the store and leave your credit cards behind, you will not be able to over-shop.
  • Empty Pockets – Sometimes I just want to go to the quilt shop to look at new fabrics, with no real idea of any projects in mind. This is a very dangerous activity. I am usually just bored, wanting to get out of the house or discouraged with a current project. Before I know it, I’m walking out of the shop $100 lighter with a bunch of projects destined for the NESTY* pile. When you are suffering from this kind of quilting ennui, it’s best to head to the shop with no money at all. You can browse and touch all the pretty things with no danger to your wallet. If you see something you really love, and the idea sticks with you for more than a few days, then you can return some other day with cash to buy it, knowing that you have really considered the purchase and are not being impulsive.
  • Reward Based Shopping – If you have amazing willpower and only allow yourself to go to the fabric shop after you have completed a project, you can avoid those fabric stacks getting too deep.

*NESTY – Not Even Started Yet

When It’s Too Hot to Quilt

Too Hot to Quilt

Quilting in the summer can be a challenge. The kids are off from school, there are vacations to contend with and pushing yards and yards of fabric through a sewing machine can be a sticky subject. I once created a greeting card about that very topic. When it’s too hot to sew, there are still other quilting-related things you can do, so put on your flip flops and give some of these a try!

  • Clean Your Sewing Space – The summer quilting doldrums are the perfect time to clean up and organize your sewing space. Halloween costumes and holiday gifts are coming up fast around the corner. You will get more done on the fun stuff if you aren’t tripping over piles of fabric and sewing scraps.
  • Dig Up Old UFOs – Remember all those “Handmade Holiday” gifts that you lamentably didn’t finish last year? Break them out and get ready to finish them up! Just imagine how productive everyone will think that you are THIS year.
  • The Boring Stuff – The hemming, the mending, those ugly curtains you’ve been putting off… get all the boring “home maintenance” stuff done and out of the way. This way, as soon as fall hits you’ll be ready for pumpkins, and gnomes and snowmen… oh my!
  • Fabric Shopping? I wasn’t going to say it, but you know you have been thinking it. Summer is a great time for fabric shopping because many quilt shops have Christmas in July sales on all those fun holiday prints you know you are going to want to have on hand, as well as clearance sales to make room for the new stuff. Not that you need any justifications for buying more fabric.

Have fun in the sun this summer and after the last hot dog is roasted, you’ll be able to hit the bobbin running with all of your quilting projects!

Do You Want a Receipt for That?

Do you want a receipt for that?

Many quilters will attempt to conceal a fabric acquisition by claiming its “been in the closet forever”! Why is it that if a stash of fabric has been in your closet a long time, you somehow feel less guilty about buying it than you’d feel if you bought it yesterday? Perhaps responsibility for fabric related splurges is inversely proportional to time because if you bought 20 yards of fabric years ago, it was certainly a lot less expensive than it would be today. Or perhaps your fabric buying behavior was rampantly out of control six years ago and your shopping today has become politely more restrained.

Maybe today you are mostly “shopping from your stash”. If that were the case, you would be among good company. According to the 2020 Quilting in America survey funded by F+W Media, 41.1% of respondents said they are consuming more of their stash than buying. That may not be too much to brag about because with the same survey quoting the average quilter as having a stash of fabric worth more than $6000, there is still clearly a lot of fabric acquisition going on. At the end of the day, don’t worry about whether that fabric has been in your stash for years or you just bought it yesterday. The important thing is to get quilting. Make something beautiful today!