I belong to the Stashbuster group, and though I'm not on No-Buy status I do want to get my stash under control. I need to enjoy having it, instead of feeling overwhelmed and unable to buy the nice new fabrics without lashings of guilt. So that means using up what I have, at least at the same rate as I buy it.

Judy L. has explained how her stash grew.

I can remember when my stash consisted of three fabrics, about 2m total. In 1980 I shared a collection of scraps and dressmaking lengths with Mereth, but when I moved to Queensland to go to college I took none of it with me. On a trip home we cut out this 1000 Pyramids quilt, which I hand-pieced over the next two years. And that was most of our stash gone in that one quilt. It's full of dress-making scraps and bits from relatives and friends, nearly 50 items of clothing that we made. We really did make almost all our own clothing back then. In fact I often had to make a blouse first, so that I could use the scraps, and Mum wouldn't frown at me for wasting fabric on patchwork. This is one of the quilts that I love the most, it has so many memories involved. It's faded and one patch has shredded, but it was the only finished quilt in my life for a long time. It's an old mate.

In my second year of college Mereth and I started swapping 5" Baby Basket blocks (also called Cake Stand I think). Each of these could be cut from a 6" charm square or scrap, and we would make several blocks, then post them to each other. It was always a good day when a fat little envelope was in the mail box. Those blocks in the centre marked the start of Mereth's attitude to piecing; why use the same fabric when you could use more, and why not use even tinier pieces if possible. I was shocked at her daring when I saw those blocks tumble out of the envelope. In 1982 I was staid and conventionalist, very close to Quilt Police status myself.

These little blocks are the beginnings of the serious stash we own today. We repeated very few fabrics, and the aim was to collect as many new prints as possible. We just never stopped, even when the quilts were done. And still not quilted as you can see; the marking pencil ran like a rabbit when something was spilled on the top, and now most of the seams have a black shadow. I'll quilt this on the Statler, and then tackle those stains; it's precious to me no matter how grotty it looks.

Being raised by a champion fabriholic, and coming from a long line of collectors, we never had a chance. In the beginning we were totally indiscriminate; if it was fabric and we could afford it we bought it. I think getting a bargain was sometimes more important than liking the stuff! Later we made better choices and built the stash selectively, but until last year there were things in my cupboards that made me shudder. It was a pleasure to weed them out and get rid of them.

Once I started quilting for a living, and had money to spend legitimately on it, I set about some serious acquisition. I spent four years travelling to dozens of quilt shops to teach, and at each place I built the stash. The material I bought then is probably still the bones of my collection; I bought rationally and with an eye to future quilts and I got a teacher discount on most of it. There's not a lot of it I regret.

What I do regret is all the bargain fabric I squirrelled away and didn't use. Most of it has been disposed of; cut up and sewn into utility quilts, gifted to others, sold or just plan thrown away. I really hope I never buy like that again, it wasn't healthy. I'm not going to give up buying cheap fabric, but I don't want to buy 3 metres of it if the price is the main attraction. I Am Not In The Market For Cheap Fabric! I am after beautiful fabric, full stop.

I think I started to feel a bit ashamed of myself when I'd get to the Spotlight sale at 8am, and by 8.30 I would have purchased all the nice cheap fabric available; anyone who couldn't get there that early would only be getting what I didn't want. But I didn't need any of it either. So I stopped doing that. I might go on the last day of the sale, and that way I consoled myself that

• no-one else wanted it more than me
  
• there must have been plenty for everyone
  
• I was meant to have it anyway.

I did a rough count last year and calculated that I would have about 1200 metres of fabric; that doesn't seem toooo bad, for 30 years of collecting. And I can still stand in my sewing room and complain 'I don't have ANY double pinks!' and almost mean it.