Prairie Moon Quilts is doing a countdown. I’m a little late to the party but wanted to play too.
The first step is to:
Take a good hard look at your fabric stash
- Do you like the way you have it stored?
- It’s okay. I’m not in love with it. But it works for me. I’ve got 4-5 large bins of what I call my yardage. Then I’ve got smaller bins for my scraps. I hit my scraps first for the scrappy quilts then move into the yardage if I need more of a particular kind of fabric. They are all stacked in my closet. They are mostly folded.
- Do you like the way you have it sorted?
- It works. I have the scraps sorted really well and I’ve gone into this in previous posts. But the yardage was moved around when we moved and used the fabric to pack our breakables. I had them in colorways and they are mostly in their colorways now but can still be cleaned up more.
- Do you like all the fabric you have?
- No. I still have fabric from my first quilt and fabric that I purchased from the big box stores before I knew better. I also have fabric that I purchased as a grab bag of sorts from The Fat Quarter Shop. They were just 30lbs of fabric in a box and I liked most of what I got but of course there were some items that I didn’t like. I’ve been cutting those down as much as possible and using them in the scrap quilts.
- Do you like the system you have, but aren’t working it like you want to?
- I like it. I think my system is pretty easy to use which is very important for me. If it wasn’t easy, I wouldn’t be able to stick to it. It’s not 100% there yet but that’s because I don’t have the patience to go through all my fabric at one time and fold everything, or put them in the right bin. I just go through bins as I need stuff and put things away where they need to be as I feel like it. Eventually it will get there. And if it doesn’t, well, it’s not a big mess so as long as it’s not in the way of me getting things done, I’m okay.
- Have you seen a system you’d like to implement but haven’t taken the time to implement?
- I haven’t seen anything. I started my current system this year so I’m still working on it. But I’m definitely open to trying new things that may help make it better, more organized and easier to use.
Here are some old pictures of my fabric stashes from previous posts:
Scrap Bin #1 and #2
9/16/2015
You’re already so organized! I want my stash to simply take up less space than it currently does. Like you, I don’t devote time to it all at once, so it’s kind of hit and miss when I work on it, but I’ll eventually get there.
Thanks Shelly. I try to be organized – sometimes it works and sometimes I spend too much time organizing and not enough time playing! 🙂
Stash sorting is an ongoing process. You are on a good track and it doesn’t look out of control.
Thank you! 🙂 I continue to hunt down a good system but for now what I’ve got works for me. 🙂
Good luck with that whole ongoing sorting and organizing thing. You’ve been doing a great job so far!
Thanks Susan!