How do you organize your stash?

[kylenstevesmom]

I am actually coming to Texas...  My best friend got married to a guy from Houston and moved there permanently on Oct 9th....   I wanted to come in march, but my mom is very sick, so I'm coming for Quilt Fest instead.

I'll stop by... just to look at fabric though.

I don't have the knit fabric in paid storage actually, all the quilting stuff's there (I think)!

I told the boy's dad that if he didn't have an air conditioner unit on my fabric trunk, I could store more stuff in there because it would be more accessable.  Let's see if he moves it or not, or if I have to make my older son help me.

We actually don't have girl scouts in Canada...  Scouts Canada is co-ed!  There are Girl Guides still, but I know someone heavily involved, and they don't  "do" sewing.  I do know someone who is invovled with 4-H, I'll ask her, and I quilt with some ladies once a week, maybe one of them knows someone who'd be interested.  If I can't find anyone, I'm going to donate it.

I cleaned up around my sewing table this morning... it took me so long that I never even got to sew!!!!  But when I want to sew tonight, I'll be able to pull up my chair and sit right down!

Theresa

[kttgoth]

I'd love to hear from someone who lives in a small space, and has their stash organized well.

I gave up my sewing room 10 years ago to have another baby, with the idea that we were going to buy a bigger house eventually... well that didn't happen and I'm still sewing in the master bedroom... which is great BUT...

I've recently taken up quilting, so I have quilting fabrics, garment fabrics, and lord knows what else all over the house.  I even have stuff at paid storage.  I have no idea what's where, and so I tend to say forget it and just go buy more.

My New Years resolution is to organize my yarn and fabrics, so that I know where EVERYTHING is. 

I currently have stuff under the bed, in all the closets upstairs, in a trunk in my son's room, and in paid storage.

I have yarn pretty much everywhere as well, and have started to get rid of what I KNOW I won't use.  I have a wooden trunk on the main floor which I think I will stick the yarn, because that's where I sew.

I have lots of see through containers, so I do have the means... but not the ideas as to how to begin organizing stuff!!!

Any ideas or suggestions are welcome!!

Theresa

You and I are very much alike.  I have everything everywhere, and have yet to come up with a great idea.  space is so very limited, so if anyone has any good ideas I'm all for it.

[dherrod]

have you ever tried fabric organizers?  www.theFabricOrgani zer.com   stores fabric on a mini bolt.  makes your stash look like a store.    Acid Free, reusable....   very easy and neat! .


ok i tried to post images... they are uploaded under user name dherrod....

[Maggiedoll]

have you ever tried fabric organizers?  www.theFabricOrgani zer.com   stores fabric on a mini bolt.  makes your stash look like a store.    Acid Free, reusable....   very easy and neat! .

ok i tried to post images... they are uploaded under user name dherrod....

Aren't those exactly the things we've been discussing as being awfully expensive for anybody with enough of a stash to need them?

[soorawn]

Apart from the price, as a person whose stash is made up of fairly large pieces that will become garments, not quilts, I've never seen the point in trying to fold a piece of, let's say 1.40m x 2m around a smallish piece of cardboard or plastic.  It only makes it bulkier and more difficult to put away.  What's wrong with piling them neatly?  They use bolts in stores because they are large.  Even there, when they are left with small amounts, they set the bolt aside and fold the remaining piece of fabric for convenience.

[kylenstevesmom]

I agree, all my garment fabrics are large pieces, all my quilting fabrics are smaller pieces, and most won't wrap around anything. 

Besides all that, I have no where to store fabric upright like a store!!!!  It's all gotta be boxed in clear containers, or somewhere I can look down and say "okay, I have this this and that"  grab it and go.

I bought some stuff in early December and now I can't find it ANYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

I guess I didn't clean as well as I thought I had huh?

Theresa

ps anymore fabric organizing ideas are welcome!!!

[Maggiedoll]

Apart from the price, as a person whose stash is made up of fairly large pieces that will become garments, not quilts, I've never seen the point in trying to fold a piece of, let's say 1.40m x 2m around a smallish piece of cardboard or plastic.  It only makes it bulkier and more difficult to put away.  What's wrong with piling them neatly?  They use bolts in stores because they are large.  Even there, when they are left with small amounts, they set the bolt aside and fold the remaining piece of fabric for convenience.

That would depend on how you organize it.  Thinner, slippery fabrics tend to slip and slide and disappear underneath bulkier fabrics.  Which you can solve by sorting them by type, but then they're sorted by type.  And I always get all indecisive about how many types I want to use, how to subdivide, etc.  If you don't sort by type, then wrapping them around something gives them some structure so that they don't slip and slide and fall to the back/bottom/land-of-lost-socks so easily. 
For now I've been storing my fabric in those big plastic bag-with-zipper things that bedding comes in, which helps with visibility, but it's pretty limiting, and they're sitting in the middle of my bedroom floor, except when I vacuum, when I haul them up onto the bed. 
Right now I have most of them wrapped around pieces of a huge printer box that I cut up.  At least that's free cardboard, and I won't have to feel guilty if I change things around again. 

[fochaux]

organization?  what's that?  I have a massive amount of those rubbermaid million gallon totes filles with notions and TONS of fabric out in the garage.  I wish i had the space for a sewing room.  I was going to use the expedit bookcase from ikea and comic book board to organize the fabric and some fabric boxes I found for fairly inexpensive for the notions

[FLooZySue]

In regard to the EXPEDIT shelving units.. the comic book cardboards I don't think will work so well and end up wasting space. What I mean is that the height and width of the little things are not equal to 1/2 of the opening of the EXPEDIT shelves, I believe they are too big, esp considering the width of the fabric wrapped around the outside. They would work great if you could double stack and create two columns within a single shelf with those things, but I don't think it'll work because of the size.

What I did was cut a cardboard template to aid in folding the fabric just a wee bit smaller than the inside demensions of the shelf. Then I placed the fabric on the shelf )horizontal, flat) and pulled the template out of the fabric.. VIOLA! folded up and stacked nice and neat! I guess you could do it vertically as well but you would have to leave the cardboard inside the fabric for upright stability.

Also, I have YARDAGE for clothing rather than small cuts for quilting projects. LOL... see the pictures I posted earlier in the thread. YIKES!!

[monstergramma]

I went to Target and got two sets of those wire cube things and made one whole end of my closet into a wall of cubes.  Then I used my 6" wide quilters ruler to wrap my fabric around and around, then fold in half.  Two stacks will fit in each cubes.   Oh don't forget to pull out the ruler....

Patterns go this way.  Printed pattern envelopes go into a plastic sheet protector and then into a ring binder.  Then the pattern pieces are in a 1 gallon zip lock with the instruction sheet on top so the number is visible and are organized in boxes by pattern number.  This way the book is portable, I can dream and plan without dragging out boxes of patterns and the system is not so complicated that I avoid keeping it up. 

After years in retail I learned that if systems have too many steps or are too complicated then you won't do it.