Skip to main content
Community & Culture

Stash

A quilter's personal collection of accumulated fabric, often larger than any single project requires.

A quilter's stash is their personal fabric collection — fabric bought, received, or collected over years that hasn't yet been used in a project. Stashes range from a single shelf to entire rooms. Building a stash allows quilters to pull fabrics for new projects without running to the store, to collect fabrics they love before they're discontinued, and to have variety available for scrap quilts. 'Stash busting' — using up existing fabric rather than buying new — is a popular challenge and virtue. The quilting community has a running joke that 'the one who dies with the most fabric wins.'

Related Terms

PrecutsFactory-cut fabric pieces sold in standardized sizes, including jelly rolls, charm packs, fat quarters, and layer cakes.Fat QuarterA quarter yard of fabric cut as 18×22 inches rather than 9×44 inches, providing a more usable square shape.Scrappy QuiltA quilt made from many different fabrics, often using up scraps and stash fabric rather than a planned palette.

Practice makes perfect.

NiftyFifty connects quilters from all 50 states through block swaps, bees, and quilt-alongs. Great place to put new techniques to work.

Try the Pattern MakerRead the Guides