quiltswithdogs

To donate, I would give it to my quilt club or post it on freecycle where I've picked up fabric for free (look online, freecycle is local to everywhere).

To sell, I don't know other than ebay. Does etsy allow selling?

I understand about downsizing. For Christmas, my niece & boyfriend gave me 4 laundry hampers of his gramma's fabric that the family had to give away when she died. It took me all January to sort, choose and fold into my stacked-to-ceiling plastic drawers. I only allow myself the amount of fabric that fits in those. After folding properly, I ended up only giving my quilt club about 1/3 of one hamper. We are always happy to be given free fabric.

I've already instructed my family that when I die, to look through my stash, take what they want, then donate the rest to my quilting club where we are all seniors with limited income.

What I learned in January was that by folding fabric like at quilt show booths, I can fit in twice as much as I did before. You may find that to be true for you too.

berryberry

Last year the local guild had a show and rented tables/spaces to vendors. Several ladies got together and sold fabrics from their stash. The audience was drawn by the show. The prices they sold their fabric at was cheaper or better than the other vendors there. I purchased a kit, 2 panels and some yardage of a fabric I had been looking for a couple of years. The whole time I was at the show that booth where they were selling fabric was busiest.

Rent a booth at a local quilt show would be my suggestion.

mckwilter

You asked how to begin the process of downsizing, and I didn't see any responses that answered that question. Here's what I'd do. (1) Decide how big a stash you want to keep. (2) Make 4 piles -- (a) absolutely love it, so must keep, (b) really like it, so should keep, (c) will I ever use it, so might give away, and (d) what was I thinking, so must give away. If your (a) and (b) piles fall within the amount in step #1, you can begin to decide what to do with (c) and (d) piles. If you still have more than you decided in step #1, you will need to do step #2 again with your (a) and (b) piles and move more fabric into the (c) and (d) piles. Keep repeating until you have the amount of fabric you decided on in step #1. Then, you need to go on to step #3, do I sell it or give it away.

This is not an easy task. I ended up giving away almost 75 yards of fabric to my quilt guild. I laid it out on a table and told everyone to look at it and if they found something they liked, take one piece. That was to prevent anyone from taking it all (every guild has one or two ). At the end of the meeting, the remaining fabric was donated to the guild for charity quilts. I didn't want to go to the hassle of listing it on eBay or having a garage sale, so the only suggestion I have is the "Sew It's For Sale" Yahoo! group.

If you do decide to donate it, here are some suggestions -- quilt guilds; Project Linus, Quilts of Valor, the Girl Scouts.

abrown27

Thank you everyone, I have enjoyed reading these suggestions. I will being the process.

icul8rg8r

My mother had us kids go "shopping" through her stash a while back (her grand-kids as well) - you'd be surprised on some of the choices the grandkids made! And what a treasure ... everyone now has a special quilt they will treasure forever!

sept97

craig's list

nhweaver

Most of us are attached to most of our stash.
1. You could try to separate the fabric and patterns that you could part with, and keep the rest.
2. Separate the lesser quality from that pile, give to local thrift store.
3. Then I would have a quilter's yard sale. Advertise it as such, in local papers. "Attention Quilter's", fabric, books, etc. Stash priced to sell., or something like that. Put a 3-4 hour time on it.
4. Have 2 or 3 friends help - if they are quilter's give them first choice of the sale.

Enjoy the "joy" you will feel from other quilter's at your sale.

judylg

I should do the same thing, sometimes I start out and say some of this has to go. Well I start digging and say I might use that and do not get rid of anything. If I could not use it for one reason or another, I would like it to go to volunteers who sew for those in need. Have told my kids that too. Until then I will think when I am going thru my stash looking for a certain piece. lol

bearisgray

This seems like one of the most thoughtful, helpful responses for the PROCESS of deciding what to keep and what can be parted with.

It seems like many of the responders assumed that the original poster wanted to give away/donate her 'excess.' Which is fine, IF that's what she wanted to do.

It seems reasonable to me to try to recover some of what one has spent on 'inventory' -

The idea of renting a table at a craft show seems like a good one - depending on how much the table costs.

One could also advertise that one is having a sale - I think the ad should give some indication of asking prices - example: Fabrics: $2 - $8 per yard - Books: $1 - $10

Or whatever you think you might get and/or the market might bear.

I do know that people like to 'score' with a truck load of fabrics for $2.00 - but I also think the original poster had recovering some of her original investment in mind.

IBQLTN

Thanks for posting this question. My future daughter-in-law and I are going to start tackling my sewing room this weekend. I have so much stuff it overwhelms me and I wind up doing nothing because by the time I clear a space to work I've lost the desire to do anything.

I have lots of UFO's but I have a lot of garment fabric I bought when I worked for a store in Missouri that got their fabric from the New York Garment District. The problem is we moved to back to Florida and with the climate difference there are some fabrics I will probably never use but it's such quality fabric I know I'll have a hard time giving it up! But one must do what one must do and I MUST downsize before my family threatens me to call "Hoarders". (Never whatched that program but the previews always make me feel guilty - LOL)