How to Organize Your Quilt Fabric Stash

re: How to Organize Your Quilt Fabric Stash

seamedUP — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 14:40:38 GMT

You may like to check out the website www.seamedup.com where you can keep track of your stash, patterns, books, etc as well as assign them to the different projects you are working on!

We are building quite a community on SeamedUP and we would love to have you join :)

re: How to Organize Your Quilt Fabric Stash

noggin — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:50:02 GMT

I also use Elfa wire basket ,but put them on shelves,with a roller blind attached to the top shelf. This keeps light out and dust at bay. Still trying to find an efficient way to keep all notions/sissors/ paper of all types/rulers,tidy. Any idea Sheila Daines Cambs England x

re: How to Organize Your Quilt Fabric Stash

noggin — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:29:23 GMT

more ideas please on b

re: How to Organize Your Quilt Fabric Stash

Leslee Gardinier — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 18:30:36 GMT

Hooray for Carol Taylor in hiding her stash to prevent dust and which also helps prevent the fibers from flying around. I wish all people would. My mother worked at a knitting mill for 25 years where wool fibers flew around in the air and caked onto the wall fans plus the people had their own table fans during the summer. My mother also sewed at home, with her stash uncovered on shelves, and knitted yet kept the yarns in boxes. Three months after she moved her sewing room from my old bedroom to a basement room, the doctor thought she had pneumonia. After a biopsy, they found she had BOOP, Bronchiolitis obliterans with organizing pneumonia (see MayoClinic.com). This lung disease is more prevalent in women than men. My mother was kept in a coma, because she couldn't breathe on her own. After a month, she was cured but the constant oxygen took the elasticity out of her lung tissue. After 10 minutes off life support, my mother passed away at the young age of 70. A year later, I finally had courage to clean out her sewing room and got the worst sinus headache. The next time, I sprayed everything with Lysol and wore a mask. So please, folks, be aware of how you store your fibers ! - Leslee Gardinier, in memory of Barbara Gardinier

re: How to Organize Your Quilt Fabric Stash

dfmrobinson — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 16:43:25 GMT

20% of my stash is put together in fabric bundles that I will make as a complete quilt. So depending upon my mood, I look at the fabric design and color and pull out a package. This even includes the backing that I included in the original package. I have so much fabric, I decided it was easier to put packages together so I would not get so irritated when trying to get fabrics together for a quilt. It works well for me. When I first did this, I had pulled all my fabric off shelves and bins and it took two weeks to re-organize my studio to be able to put quilt packages together.

re: How to Organize Your Quilt Fabric Stash

jala — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 16:40:32 GMT

I have changed my organisation of fabric stash. First I had all by colour solids and prints together. But now I know what I need for my work. So I changed my organisation and put fabric that I can use for Water and Skies together so do fabric which I can use for stones like houses and streets. Others are for flowers and so on. Also one case is filled with organza,s and Tule. For now that is how it works for me.

Greetings from Jacoba Lange (jala)from the Netherlands If You are interested to see some of my work pls go to http://codiart.blogspot.com

re: How to Organize Your Quilt Fabric Stash

sabknits — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 12:54:18 GMT

I store my fabric stash, which consists mostly of folded fat quarters, by color in large, shallow bins under my mixed media studio worktable. The table will shelter two stacks of 3 bins. I store all my fabric scraps in a large, covered bin.

Thanks for posting this article! I've been thinking about rearranging to make it easier to access my fabrics and got some great ideas from the article!

re: How to Organize Your Quilt Fabric Stash

floozette — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 02:24:46 GMT

I have a number of 48 litre/12 gallon translucent plastic tubs on wheels which fit into purpose-built spaces under a work bench. The fabrics are folded in the bins in colours, eg, blue, green, orange/reds, pink/reds, etc. I have one bin for patterned fabrics which have many colours and are difficult to classify into one colour or another. This system works very well for me, as I mostly work in monochrome so I can wheel the current bin to wherever I want it.

Fat quarters have their own little boxes into which they fit on end and because the boxes are also translucent plastic I can see exactly what is in each one.

re: How to Organize Your Quilt Fabric Stash

cjfquilts — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 18:48:13 GMT

I had a lot of my fabric in an Elfa drawer rack. I found that this exposed the fabric to too much dust! I now have a wonderful glass doored cabinet with drawer from Ikea. It shows the colors and keeps the dust off! I have my completed tops and quilts folded to show color/texture. In addition, my fabric sets for specific projects are in there. I also have another restaurant stainless steel rack for plastic boxes of the stash sorted by color. It is a lot of fabric!

re: How to Organize Your Quilt Fabric Stash

taylorgal — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 18:07:18 GMT

I just (within the last week and a half) pulled together my quilting studio. I purchased clear plastic bins to put my fabric stash in. They are organized according to color. I am inspired by Carol Taylor's approach, but not good at value yet, so color will have to do. I like to sort the bin according to value within that color, but I haven't gotten around to that part yet. So glad to see this post!! For a year I've thought about how I would organize my fabric stash if I could. Now I was blessed to be able to do it. Posts like these have been instrumental to working towards the goal of having my own studio. Thank you!

re: How to Organize Your Quilt Fabric Stash

laabix — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:37:53 GMT

I wrap my fabric around a comic book board and put in on shelves by color. For scraps, I cut the comic boards into 1/3 strips and wrap the scraps around the very thin board. Those thin boards are kept alongside each other in a shallow box that I covered with fabric; when I pull the shallow box off of the shelf, it is similar to pulling out a file drawer. My fat quarters are folded and kept in those $1 clear plastic containers.

re: How to Organize Your Quilt Fabric Stash

RaeVivienne — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 06:41:57 GMT

My sewing place was once a bedroom, and has a short wall of built-ins - 2 hanging spaces, 2 sets of 2 shelves + 4 shallow drawers, and a central hutch with a mirror back and drawers beneath - 4 large and 2 small. I took all the doors off, kept one hanging space for tall rolls of tearaway paper, pellon, vilene and the like, and had shelves fitted in the other and in any space that was high enough to take another shelf.

The big drawers hold a good collection of hand-dyed fabric, mostly fat quarters and half-yards, folded for the depth of the drawers, sorted by colour and stored vertically, folds up. (After trying this, I will never stack horizontally again). One drawer holds backing fabrics folded to fit the full width of the drawer. The shelves hold bulky items (a lace pillow, a set of old treadle machine drawers for tapes, darning wool, odds & ends) and material for different projects in fridge baskets. The small drawers hold prints - batiks, Japanese, stripes etc, and one drawer has Bits. I've tied luggage labels to the knobs and used a collection of tea-towels collected for their personal meaning as curtains to keep dust and sun off the fabrics.

re: How to Organize Your Quilt Fabric Stash

Marion BP — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 02:13:05 GMT

I have a whole spare bedroom with a double doors which should be used as hanging space. I purchased sets of clear plastic containers which are in a file-like stack & have placed these in the cupboard. I then sort my fabrics into sets e.g. baby materials, florals, colours(going from light to dark shades),flannels, quilt kits, fat quarters, charms & so-forth. Therefore I can easily go to the draw depending on the project I am doing.

The large boxed charm fabrics are stored on the floor & my utensils & mats needed are stored on the flat surface on top of the files. On the parcel shelf above is where the batting etc is stored.

Everything is neat & tidy & the doors protect from light & dust.

The grandchildren know that this room is a No Go Area unless invited in by me.

Marion B.P.

re: How to Organize Your Quilt Fabric Stash

anita reed — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 23:10:30 GMT

I buy collections and keep it together in bins. This way all of the fabrics go together well. I have had many people ask me how I get my colors to match so wel and that is the answer. I have found designers' new collections often go with the old ones also.

re: How to Organize Your Quilt Fabric Stash

Janetstudios — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 20:41:17 GMT

My studio of fabric consists of plastic containers full of fabrics, one is for cottons, for crafts, and quilting etc. Another container is for knits for tshirts and things.

One more container for used clothing that will be repursposed. Yet another container for muslim and cottons, burlaps, for crafts, these are big plastic containers that are see thru and then i have two smaller see thru containers for all my fat quarters. I have lace and other things in bags. I always have alot going on and try to keep it under control.