Fabric Stash Busting Ideas From Our Longarm Machine Renters

I heard a joke once about people like me. You would not expect a coin collector to use his collection at a vending machine. You would not expect a stamp collector to mail a letter with his stamps. So why do people ask me what I’m going to make with my fabric? All joking aside, quilters do tend to have a fabric stash. We have all the beautiful pieces left over from projects. There are the pieces we intended to do something with, but then thought better of or replaced with something else. And then there are the pieces that spoke to us, but had no purpose but we bought them anyway. Either way the stash grows, there comes a time when it needs cleaning out. Here are a few stash busting quilts that our longarm machine renters brought in.

Alice’s Stash Busting Beauty

Alice’s Birdy Beauty is a great example of a stash buster. If you look carefully you can see the square blocks. Because each block has long and short pieces but rotated differently, the top looks complicated and varied. And just for good measure, she has a couple of large solid square blocks of the border fabric. This would make a great scrappy quilt. She quilted it with a pantograph called Airborne. This design has some curled hooks that give an almost cloud look or wind. It definitely added some nice curves to this very straight top.

Erin’s Stash Busting Crazy Quilt

This is a quilt by Erin Harris of HouseonHillRoad.com for her oldest daughter leaving for college. Every piece looks as if it is a different size and none of the vertical lines look perfectly straight. So it has a very crazy quilt look, even though the rows are nice and straight. How much fun is that for a stash buster? Erin likes to quilt free motion from the front of the quilt. She just covered it with some rows of loops to give it some roundness and movement. Simple, but effective!

Vickie’s Tidy Stash Buster

Vickie made this quilt for her rental certification class. Made in thin strips, the small blue and green rectangles all sit in neat little rows in a field of white. It would be a fun way to use up scraps from lots of different projects. Because the colored blocks don’t touch, there would be less chance of colors clashing right next to each other. She quilted her stash buster with a very popular pantograph called Square Spiral. It adds this lovely rippled texture to a quilt without the addition of a floral, star, or heart design.

Sally’s Jelly Roll Stash Buster

This is called a jelly roll race quilt. But it looks like Sally had a very eclectic collection of batik jelly roll strips. With all those bright and cheerful colors, it is very hard to see what she quilted on top of it. I think it is Airborne, but it might be Turbulance. All I can see is some round curves and swirls that accentuate the long lines of the top. A beautiful choice, even if you can’t quite make it out.

Dennis’s Wedding Stash Buster

This is a wedding gift Dennis made for his daughter. Even though the top came together quickly it was a while before he found us so he could quilt it. His daughter and son-in-law were excited to have the quilt and apparently asked about it often. Like many other scrap busters, the mix of fabrics in the rows is super fun. But I like Dennis’s addition of the dark border. It really sets the rows apart. He quilted this with a Square Spiral pantograph which added that lovely texture to the quilt. A great choice for this piece.

I hope that gives you some ideas for your next stash busting project. Whether with an intricate pattern like a Bonnie Hunter design, or just a jelly roll race, there are a lot of fun ideas that can be made with lots of crazy fabrics.