Is this stashbusting?

First off, thanks for all the well-wishes for my son; I am happy to say that at about 3 am he seemed to turn the corner for the better, phew! It all did seem to get much worse before an improvement so needless to say, I was very worried. He is still in alot of pain though. Right now he is laying on the bed playing with a little battery operated helicopter - a good sign!!!

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So, here are 2 photos of my fabric purchases from Marden's (2 different stores!). The Marden's I go to are in Maine, I don't know if there are Marden's anywhere else, but most the fabric is $2.99 a yard and the fat fabric (108" wide) is $7.99 per yard.

First photo - on the right are 3 different fat fabrics for backings. Blue for Shakespear, pink for Tulips and yellow for Bargello. In th front there is the great border fabric I found for Bargello and an inner orange border. Behind that you see a red horse print with a brown - these 2 fabrics were purchased specifically to make a pillowcase for one of Little Boy's cousins - he saw this fabric and right away declared we had to get it and I decided a pillowcase would be a quick and easy project. Next fabric in the back row is large flowers with fairies - this will be used for my Tulip border. In front of that is Betty Boop and a lime green. These will be used in my red ocean waves (I know - a big contrast, but I am thinking it will be fun and if I really don't like it - well she will make a good backing for Purple Strings). Of course, my son needed to add to his own fabric collection so 1/2 a yard of a barnyard animal print and a rainbow fabric, plus a cream fabric with hearts (he loves hearts!). The last 3 fabrics way over to the right - well - those are fabrics I bought hoping they would match another finished top that needs borders, but no such luck. However, they will be turned into lined tote bags and any left over fabrics will be cut into strips for the string bin.

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The next photo - I had to go to another store because I was really determined to get fabric for my purple strings and for my Grandmother's choice. I also got 2 different pastel background fabrics, plus 5 yards of white muslin (I think it was maybe $1.40 per yard) for a background for a dresden plate quilt I really want to get started on. The maroon is the borders for Grandmother's choice. The purples are for the Purple strings, (the pink with frogs is for the Purple strings inner border - told you it was a FUN fabric), and 2 fat quarters... just because.

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Most of my fabric is not alot of yardage. That works fine for me because I particulary love scrappy quilts. I just love it when people give me their scraps because I use them! I specifically look for patterns that use the fabric I have on hand and then when I get everything pieced together that I can without buying more fabric - THEN I put the fabric I need to finish the quilt on my shopping list. I almost always need borders, sashings, and backgrounds and backings. The trick is not to get distracted by all the other beautiful fabric in the store... at least for right now because I have lots of scraps needing to be used before I start buying fabrics to replenish my stash, but don't you agree, a few fat quarters adds a nice little boost?

The GREAT thing about these purchases is that I can now put almost all of them to immediate use to finish quilts... and, as you can see, I already started putting my Purple Strings together using the purple.

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So, YES, I do call these purchases STASHBUSTING. I had a list in hand when I went into the store and almost every single fabric was purchased to FINISH a quilt or use as a background in order to continue using my scraps. So you see, sometimes you do have to buy fabrics to stashbust. Makes sense to me!