Organizing the Maker Stashes ~ Quilting & Bulky Fabrics

The next part of my Organizing the Maker Stashes series is all about quilting & bulky fabrics. I’m storing & logging these fabrics a little differently than the apparel fabrics. I’ve also finished sorting all my fabric, so I can reveal my newly reorganized shelves! There are a few things I’d like to tweak still, but for now they are much more functional for me. : )

Folding & Labeling Quilting Fabrics

I treated my quilting fabrics a little differently than all my other fabrics. First off, I’m not cutting any samples to keep in my fabric log. When it comes to quilting cotton, I use every last bit of it & that means nothing to spare for samples!

I’m also wrapping all my 1/2 cuts & yardage on the comic book boards so I can store them vertically. That will be like a fabric book shelf! : D

The fabric I have that’s in full yards is already folded in half once. This is how it usually comes off the bolt. I just folded it in half again lengthwise & it’s the perfect size for the boards. Hanging the extra yardage off the end of a table really helps keep tension on the fabric when rolling it up. I managed to roll up a 6 yard piece of fabric using the boards with no trouble at all!

A half yard of quilting cotton is 18″ x 44″-45″ & again it usually comes folded in half which makes it about 18″ x 22″. Folding it in half lengthwise gives you 22″ to wrap around the board & that works much better. I tend to buy either 1/2 yard cuts or 1 yard cuts when buying yardage.

I had a bunch of sizes in between all this & basically if it would wrap around a board, that’s what I did!

Labeling

The painter’s tape worked well to help secure the ends. I also wrote down the size of the fabric & noted where I bought it from. The “FM” stands for Fabric Mart. : )

If it had a selvage edge with labeling, I folded it so it was showing. I can tell on this one, for example, that it came from JoAnn Fabrics because of the “NN” that’s showing.

I was able to get all of my quilting cotton from 1/2 yard cuts & up wrapped on the boards. So satisfying!

Fat Quarter Fun

Next it was time to deal with my fat quarter stash…..gulp!

While I had hoped to move these to the shelf with my fabric scrap bins, it just didn’t work out that way. I did sort them by color, unless there was a set I wanted to keep together. The key to keep the stacks neat is to fold them the same way. Or as close the same as you can get them to being the same! ; )

This was easy for the regular fat quarters, but I had to work with the pieces that were slightly larger or smaller. My biggest scrap bin holds 5″+ pieces. If I can fold it up more that once & it’s too small to be on a board, it goes in with my fat quarters. Having “rules” like these help me divide and conquer a little quicker! : )

Bulky Fabrics & Neatly Stacked Shelves

Some fabrics just don’t fold & stack very well! I had several bigger pieces of fleece that I just could not fit back on my main fabric shelf if I wanted things to stay nice & neat. I had a plastic bin that used to hold my bigger cotton yardages & it was perfect for the fleece.

Everything fits nice & neatly & the bin helps hold it all together. I’ll be storing this in another room, which is fine since I don’t use these fabrics as often as others.

Now, let’s take a look at my reorganized fabric shelves! There’s a break down below the pictures to tell you what’s happening on each shelf. I just love looking at these shelves now y’all! : D

Fabric Shelf #1

This shelf has metal dividers which helps keep things neat!

1. The bins on the top shelf hold quilts in progress. There are extra serger cones in the stacked gnome boxes & super scraps in the jars on the end.
2. In the first slot is a bin with smaller knit scraps, then there’s a stack of cut bags for the shop plus a bin of zippers. The middle slot holds interfacing that is folded on cardboard {great stand in for comic boards!}. Next are two stacked containers with trims & elastic on the bottom & things for bag making on top. The last slot holds two containers of bag making leftovers. I had to take the lid off the bottom container to make these fit.
3. This shelf holds my stacks of fat quarters which are stacked two layers deep. First slot is black, white, & gray; 2nd slot is browns/creams & holiday prints; 3rd slot is blues, greens, & purples; 4th slot is red/pink, yellow, & orange; last slot is fat quarter bundles I want to keep together. I’m looking for bins for this section!
4.  This shelf starts my apparel fabric stash & is all knits. They start with 1 yard cuts on the left & go up in size as you go to the right. The last slot is just bulkier knits that take up more space.
5. The first & second slot are bottom weights, suitings, & such. The next one is full of shirtings, then there’s slinky & sheer fabrics. There are more bulky knits in the last slot.
6. Home decor fabrics in the first slot & velveteen & corduroy in the 2nd slot. The remaining slots have larger apparel scraps on boards.
7. More decor fabrics in the first slot. Burlap, utility fabrics, & faux leather in the next two slots. And more apparel scraps on boards to finish it off.

Fabric Shelf #2

I wanted to store the fabric vertically on the other shelf too, but the spacing was too short!

1. The wire basket on top holds a fleece blanket kit & finished quilt tops on the left end. There is a stack of felt on the other end under a smaller wire basket. That basket holds my Tula Pink collection & special fabrics from crafty friends. The bigger decorative box on the right holds empty thread spools & the box on top holds Velcro.
2. This shelf holds quilt kits & finished quilt blocks in baggies. I used the stacked basket “technique” again to help separate things.
3. These are my 2 yard plus rolls of fabric. On the left end are a couple of layer cakes, fat quarter packs, & one jelly roll. These are still tied together or in plastic
4. This shelf holds all my 1/2 yard to 1 yard cuts of fabric. They are kind of grouped by color except for prints I wanted to keep together.
5. The bins on this shelf hold my scraps sorted by size & I have labels on each of them so I know what’s inside.
6. Last shelf starting from the left – machine manuals, bags of scraps from crafty friends, a bin of charms & one of mini charms, my bin of 5″+ scraps.

I plan on creating an Excel sheet to keep track of my quilting fabrics. It will be similar to the one I created for my yarn stash. I may snap a pick or find one online to paste in just for a visual. All my other fabrics have samples cut & I’ll be working on making my old planner into a fabric log.

Man, that was a lot to type, but I hope y’all found some useful information in here! I’ll be posting more about my yarn stash on Friday. Plus I’ll give y’all a better view of my logs. Have a great week! : )