I hear there’s a show called ‘Hoarders’ but I’m afraid to watch it. Truly, I’ve gotten better…but in a good quilt shop, there’s always the fabric I cannot resist.

Here’s the lifecycle –

• I buy it
• I fondle it
• I fold it
• I leave it in some relatively prominent location in my home office
• Then I bury it under the newest acquisition
• Next stuff it in a drawer or closet shelf when the fabric pile becomes untenable.

Solids, solid like prints or wovens, spots and even stripes, eventually reappear and get cut into little pieces to be reassembled into larger pieces I like to call ‘quilts tops’. But the ones with the larger prints, the ones that are really works of art that could be framed, remain buried, unused.

I imagine them like the Island of Misfit Toys (remember in Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer?) only they’re the misfit fabrics. There’s nothing wrong with them. They just don’t fit in. Or they need to be used for something very special. They are not fabric to be cut into 2-1/2″ strips or 3″ squares. They are flashy. They need exposure.

This travel print from Alexander Henry was just one of those prints. Also the Pucci like paisley you can kind of  see there.

I made a quilt top with big honking pieces. 9-1/2″ squares.  Big enough to get big motifs from the very cool artwork in.  Then we added coordinating solids, and some of my stashed away spots.  I thought I was finished and ready to quilt it but it looked dorky. The whole mess was about to go back to the Island of Misfit fabrics and unfinished objects, but then…Schnap the Co-Quilter dragged a nearby Frisbee onto the quilt. Co-Quilter knew what to do. Bigger spots! We cut and inserted bigger spots into the top. Ta da! Travel spots…Complete with spots big and small.