Are you overwhelmed by your fabric stash? Can you walk into your sewing room and start sewing right now without making room to sew. Lets get organized together.
Let me start by saying I am not a professional organizer by any means. I would describe myself as messy person who is used to working in unorganized caos. But enough is enough. It is time to organize, Who is with me?
First you need to determine what kind of fabric stash you have. Do you have lots of large pieces of fabric or lots of scraps. I have both. I have a ton of scraps. Small pieces of fabric that are left over from past projects. I love to make scrap quilts. Over the next several weeks I will be organizing my fabric and giving you tips on ways to organize your fabrics. I am starting with my scraps.
You do not have to surrender or wave a white flag. We can do this. This is not an overnight project. Start small. What I have been doing is filling a shopping bag with fabric and organized that. One bag at a time. It may take you 20 minutes or longer to go through a bag. One bag at a time is less intimidating then a huge pile. Work at your own pace. Take breaks and reward yourself. After you have organized a bag, relax for a few. Watch a little tv, read a book, sew a little, or eat some ice-cream.
With my scraps I have been cutting them in specific sizes. I have them devided into 5 and 10 inc
h squares, and a variety of strip sizes. I cut my strips from 3 inches down to 1 1/2 inches. I don’t have much use for anything small then that for most of my scrap quilts. Once they are divided they will all go into a container for each specific size.
I would like to give a special thanks to John Leyba, staff photographer for the Denver Post for coming and taking pictures of me and some of my scraps. He was pretty surprised when I was empting bags of fabric and I told him this is nothing. You should see what I have in my “sewing room” which is now just a big pile of stuff.
Next time I will show you how you can organize larger pieces of fabrics.
Alison's Expressions 
As the owner of a quilt shop, you must be faced with the temptation of adding to your fabric collection on a daily basis? I love the pictures of you swimming in those scraps! I have a similar accumulation only my circumstances are that I’ve been collecting for a lifetime and now I’m old 🙂
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Glad you like the photos. I am downsizing right now so I really can see how much stuff I really have.
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Hi, l make children’s l spy quilts and ended up with lots of bits so l decided to tidy them up by cutting them into suitable squares or strips that made a feature of that fabric then instead of hanging onto the bits left over in case l might be able to use them but instead they go into a bag & when it’s full l take it to the local preschool for the school tactile experiences & picture making.
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That is a great. I have been donating a lot of fabric to local charities that make quilts for the needy.
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Sorry about autocorrect for it should read ……..preschool for the children’s tactile experiences and picture making.
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Great photos! I’m a scrappy quilter and have a ton of scraps. I was astonished to find that of the blogs on your sidebar, which you follow, there’s only one I don’t follow. Plus Award Images, but I get all the ones for our sim on Theta Fleet’s site! How funny that you and I are interested in so much that’s the same! I hope all is well with you. I just discovered your block of the month, but March doesn’t seem to be up, and I don’t see any recent posts here, either. Or the other appliqué method post you mentioned you’d be doing. I hope that only means that you are incredibly busy with the shop!
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I loved the pictures of the scraps and had to chuckle with the one of you drowning in the middle.
Thank you very much for the tip on organizing your scraps by size and strips 🙂
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Thank You. Yes life is just crazy I am in the middle of moving. The snow globes will be up hopefully by tomorrow
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Love your scrap pictures, too funny!
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So many scrapes , so little time.
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Since I have scraps, deconstructed garments, thrift buys and whimsical yardage buys I tend to organize by fabric type or content and then subdivide into little pieces and big pieces, lol. Works for me.
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Great pictures. Thanks for sharing.
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