There's no doubt about it, when you take up quilting, you'll need to buy lots of fabric! And fabric isn't cheap! But I have some tips for how you can save money on quilting fabric.

Many people become fabric collectors at the same time they fall in love with the craft of quilting. And those are two different hobbies! I was mesmerized with all the fat quarters at Joann as a new quilter. A fat quarter is a quarter yard of fabric that measures 18 by 22 inches. It's a very common precut for quilters to use and it's an easy way to get a variety of prints for your stash for less money than buying yardage.

I stocked up on every color in the rainbow, and then that became the foundation for my first quilt.

My first quilt, finished in 2015. I drew out a design on graph paper because I was intimidated about reading a quilt pattern.

Now there are different ways to go about acquiring fabric for quilting. Some quilters buy just the fabric they need for each project, while others work on building up their stash.  I'm a stash builder. There are pros to just buying the fabric you need, when you need it. Pros include having a complete line of prints that go well together. But typically, you won't be able to get that set of fabric on sale (unless you're buying precuts which I'll explain further below). And I'm more of a sale shopper. I have tips about how to choose fabric from your stash that plays well together, but I'll save that for another blog post. In this post, I'm going to focus on ways to build up your stash in an economical way.

If you're just starting out or if you have an established stash, I think you'll find these tips for saving money on fabric very helpful. Quilting is not a cheap hobby. Making a quilt requires love and patience. You're going to spend several hours on this project, and if you want your quilt to last, you'll buy quality quilting cotton. A handmade quilt is a treasure that can last many, many years and be handed down to the next generation. But I fully understand wanting to protect that pocketbook in the process. I've been there, and am still there! So let's get on to the tips.

Buy Fabric That You'll Actually Use in Your Quilts

You see the fabric on the shelf, and you love it. But you get it home and it doesn't seem to work in any of your patterns or with the other fabric you have in your stash. One of the reasons could be scale.

Be aware of scale. Fabrics that have large-scale prints work well in large cuts, but not small.  Like the center of a star block. Or as quilt backing. Small-scale fabric designs are more versatile.  In fact, if the color contrast is low, and the print is small, it can appear as a solid from afar and so will work very well in many quilt uses. If you have fabric in your stash that you're never going to use, that wasn't a great purchase, was it?

Be aware of how well the fabric plays with others. Look for fabric that goes with what you've already got in your stash. Perhaps you have some favorite colors. Keep adding more fabric to your stash in those colors. Then you'll likely use those prints. Be on the lookout for collections that you like, too. Fabric collections are the greatest thing! Because all the colors in the collection already work together so choosing a color scheme for a quilting project is done for you. You may only need to supplement with some solids and/or a backing fabric.  I love to collect precut packs in the collections from designers I like.  Packs like Jelly Rolls, Layer Cakes, and Charm Packs. Those are 2.5-inch strips, 10-inch squares, and 5-inch squares, respectively. The advantage of a precut pack is that you can get a big selection or assortment of prints from a collection without breaking the bank.

Finding Fabric for Less

Shop sales. There are at least a couple online shops that send emails about daily deals.  One of my favorite online shops, FabricShack.com (not an affiliate), has a sale section that is nicely organized by price point so it's not like sifting through a big bargain bin. I was able to find several pieces for backing there recently. I start at their lowest price point, $4.96 per yard (click here) and start browsing. Yes, you'll sift through several prints you don't like, but every time I've done this, I find some really good prints by designers I like.

After I check out the lowest price point, I go up to the next one and so on. I have my preferred price point, and I can usually get several items at that price point. Sometimes the prints that are on sale are in limited quantities, like under a yard, or just a couple yards. Those are great for building up your stash, but if you're looking to buy yardage for backing, you probably want to stick with 5-yard cuts. That's enough yardage to back a 76 x 82-inch quilt vertically with a 4-inch margin all around for a longarmer. I picked up six backings the other day with this trick.

Shop online destash events. I also like to shop other people's destash events. I feel like this is the best kept secret. You can typically find these on social media when you search for "fabric destash." This is where I feel I've found the best stuff.  I mostly collect precut packs this way, but I've also done grab bags in specific colors and managed to get some really quality stuff. You typically comment that you want the item and if you're the first to comment, you get it and the seller invoices you on Paypal.

Here's a bundle of low-volume fat quarters I picked up a few months ago in a destash event a friend was having.

Save your scraps! Maybe this goes without saying, but just in case, save your scraps when you quilt. I've seen people just pitch them in the trash, and that is so sad to me! You can do so much with even really small pieces. I've amassed so many scraps now, I'm able to put together whole scrappy quilts and it doesn't feel like I'm spending any money since these are leftovers!

You'll have to decide what is your minimum size scrap to save. And some find it helpful to organize them in some way.  I pretty much save anything over 1-inch square.  Pretty crazy, I know.  But I like to fit in super small pieces in my work.  I know others who will only save pieces that are 2 inches or bigger. You can organize them by size or by color.  Or do what I do and just put them in a big bin. 😆

Conclusion

I hope this helps you build up a stash and save money while you do it! To review, we covered the following ways you can save money while you build up your stash:

• Buy only fabric you know you'll use
• Shop sales and destash events
• Load up your stash with precut packs--on sale, of course!

Here's a quilt I finished using only my stash. I used a couple different charm packs and some odd jelly roll strips.

Let me know if you have any other tips for saving money on quilting fabric. And stay tuned for an upcoming blog post on how to pick fabrics that go well together in your quilts.

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