Reorganizing My Fabric

Due to other projects, it is going to be a while before my sewing table/area in the library gets done. This currently puts me in the dining room (which is fine since we don't use really use it anyway). However, my fabric organization was starting to become non-existent and I was going crazy. I would know I bought something and then have an impossible time finding it on my shelf. Or, more commonly, my piles would tip over as I tried to look for things on the bottom.

I solved this by going to the dollar store and picking up some plastic storage containers (the ones about the size of a shoe box) and I sorted all my fabric into color categories (red/pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black/gray, white, brown, and miscellaneous for the ones that are too many colors to decide). The only container that is packed to the brim is blue, so this actually works out quite nicely. Now, I just know not to buy anymore blue fabric until I use up some more.

Some of my littler pieces (I call them my big scraps because they're smaller than a fat quarter but too big to be in my scrap bin) do have the potential to get lost in these but at least I know if I have it, where to find it. This also takes up a lot less space on my shelf so I have more room for my bigger fabrics (I only put my fat quarters or less in the bins) since the bins can stack.

I still have more organizing to do but by going through my fabrics like this, I can really see what I have. I decided to sort by color because my mother in law used to sort hers by category (holiday, seasons, polka dots, Asian, etc) but then she'd forget she'd have certain things when she was looking for something general because others were still by color. I thought about doing it this way but I want the potential to use all my fabrics (some day, it would be nice to get few enough that I'll feel like I need more. I'm not there yet and I probably have less fabric than a lot of people).

I also decided to reorganize my patterns, both the envelope ones and ones I already have cut out from previous things I've made. I had started keeping them in an accordion file folder thing (you know, those plastic things with like 7 folders in it?) but that was getting full really fast. I'm currently in the middle of fabric covering some binders so I can put all my patterns in sheet protectors and organize them that way. The fabric covering looks really cool but I'm running into some snags. I'll share later when they're done.