I had a basement sewing room for about 5 years after I got married but then I rarely used it due to being Mom to 2 small children, a Girl Scout leader and working full time. My vast amount of sewing items got stripped to the bare necessities and the duplicates, non-essentials and any fabric I didn’t like was sold at a garage sale. My husband took over the room and the rest of my "sewing room" went into a part of the basement used for storage and got buried behind more and more storage over the years. It was accessible through little walkways but it was still inconvenient to access.
In October 2019 I expanded my first floor craft room to make room for my sewing items and I was presented with the question of how to organize my fabric. I searched the internet and found ideas for storage in bins like I had been storing them, or storing the fat quarters in a specific type of clear bin, and also using a large quilting ruler to wrap your fabric around making them nearly the same size for stacking in cabinets and etc. I loved how pretty it looked to have fabric stacked neatly with a way to get a glimpse of the color and pattern. I already was using Ikea Kallax cubical type bookcases in my craft room so when I remodeled the craft room I purchased all the storage from Ikea. This left my original Ikea Kallax which I had purchased drawers and cabinet fronts for to now use as fabric storage. I also adopted the method of using the clear bin for my fat quarters but the way I organized the rest of my fabric within the Ikea unit has evolved over the months.
Originally I sorted my fabric by size. I felt that I could easily look at a quilt pattern that called for a certain number of standard sized fabric cuts and pull what I need from my "fabric store". I put all my fabric that was 1 yard or more into several cubicles, then all half yard cuts into several others. My fat quarters were in one clear storage bin sorted by color family. My fat eighths were in one Ikea drawer and my eighth yard cuts were in the other drawer. My quarter yard cuts were in the lower right cupboard and my Christmas fabrics were in the lower left cupboard. (I still have scrap booking items in the other drawers but I need to find a way to move them so all the drawers are available for fabric. That will allow me to store my fat quarters in them and re-purpose the clear bin for completed patchwork quilt tops.)
I started my recently renewed quilt making efforts by using scraps and fabric cuts that were eighth yards or less as well as some fat quarters and making 4 scrappy 9 patch quilt tops for everyone in one of my extended families. The type of fabric storage I had set up worked perfectly for these completely scrappy quilts since I knew where all my scraps were as well as my eighth yard cuts, fat eighths and fat quarters. I also over time noticed fabrics that paired perfectly with each other so I pulled those out and stacked all those sets together in one section. After I found out what colors most of my other family members preferred in quilts I realized that I couldn't keep pulling all fabrics in the same color family from every section of my storage when I needed it.
Phase 2 of my fabric organization was very similar to the first phase. I continued stacking the fabrics that had been wrapped around my large quilting ruler only I stacked all the blues together, all the greens together and etc. I still kept my quarter and eighth yard fabrics separately. I noticed that I wasn't as inspired as I was before to pull out coordinating sets but that was okay since I was looking for specific colors for the other members of my family. I did, however, decide that I wanted to take each color section out and organize them with the darkest colors at the bottom and the lightest color at the top. This really helped me because my eyes enjoyed the organization of color and could more easily pull out specific values of each color (light, medium or dark) for any quilts I was pulling fabric for.
Over several months I realized that I wanted to have a "blended" method of organizing. I really liked the color family method with the darkest on the bottom, but I had other specific categories of fabric that I wanted to pull out and keep together. I wanted all of my solids that were more than a quarter yard to be stacked together to easily find a solid when I needed it. I wanted all my plaids together because I have always wanted to make a plaid apple core design quilt and had previously purchased many different plaids in eight yard or more sections. I was okay with stacking the smaller cuts of fabrics in my plaids because they all needed to be together. I had inherited some gingham fabric and couldn't figure out what to do with it until the idea of sewing them together for a child's twin quilt backing came to me. I needed to stack all the ginghams together to be sure I used them up. I already pulled some out for one of the quilts I am working on.
After working on 5 or 6 quilt tops I noticed that my fabric stash was getting smaller so I went into the basement and pulled up all of my novelty prints as well as my special reproduction depression era prints that I had only used to make baby quilts for my daughters and was hoarding for just the right project. I stacked every novelty fabric together by theme (farm theme, animal themed, nautical, patriotic etc.) This inspired me to pull some of those fabrics out for quilt tops including some of that special depression era reproduction fabric for a new baby girl in the family due in July. I now have all of my quilting cotton fabrics organized and in my craft room.
As you can see in the photo starting on the top left section and working down, my current organization is a stack of half of my color families on the left and all my plaids on the right in the first cubicle. The cubicle to the right has all my solids and ginghams. I can easily see that I need more solids. The lower left cubicle has fabric sets I have pulled out that pair well with each other and can easily be grabbed for specific projects with little to no additional fabric needed to complete a quilt top. To the right of that stack is the other stack of color families. (As I write this and and analyze how I have stored things I am going nuts over the fact that I didn't stack my two color family stacks next to each other in the same cubicle. This will be fixed immediately tonight so it makes more sense.) The cubicle on the lower right has a stack of reproduction prints including a new stack of fat eights so I don't run out of my favorite type of fabric. The stack to the right of it is my current novelty prints. I really don't buy novelty prints anymore but since I inherited most of those and they are 75% farm themed, I think I can use them in a quilt top or quilt back for a child. The left drawer is all I have left of my half yard fabrics and the drawer on the right is what I have left of my quarter yard cuts. I used up my routine fat eighths in my scrap quilt. The open cupboard on the lower left still houses all my Christmas fabric. It looks empty but the majority of the shadow you see is actually two fabric stacks completely filled to the top.
I haven't shown the clear plastic bin I use for my fat quarters because I pulled about 75 % of the fat quarters out to use in quilts I am going to make for family members. This means the remaining fat quarters are loose and unable to be kept upright, orderly and color coordinated. I will soon have room for the remaining ones in my Ikea so I won't continue to use the clear bin for fabric quarters. Sorting by color family was very inspirational while I was using it plus I placed them in a way that I could see all the colors from the top. I did not stack them on each other. I stacked them upright which was about the height of the bin, and the other ones were placed in front or behind each other which was very effective in allowing me to see every fat quarter at the same time.
The cupboard on the lower right only stores two sets of flannel fat quarter sets. I bought them by accident. I am tempted to just stack them on one of the stacks of fabric above so I can bring up my feed sacks and fabrics cut from certified feed sacks and store them there along with a plastic shoe box bin that has left over depression era fabric scraps and a few blocks made by my Great Grandmother. I would love to have enough fabric available to make a twin sized quilt but I would settle for a wall hanging. I don't want her work to live on without being appreciated. It definitely came down to the correct relative.
Having my fabric stacked, organized and out in the open like this inspires me daily to make new quilts. I have more fabric than this but I have squirreled away enough fabrics for at least 5 or 6 of the quilts in the colors my family has requested. I am okay with having them out of sight because I AM working on those and won't forget about them, plus I won't accidentally get inspired to use fabric that could have been used for one of my family members. I had always intended on using up my fabric stash after I retired so I could save money by shopping from my stash. I just needed to set it up where I could see it to get the quilting juices flowing again.!
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