How I Sorted and Organized My Fabrics

Piles of fabric on the floor, the process of sorting and refolding. I had to refold a lot of fabric, ugh!

So, I showed you a bit of my fabric sorting and organizing process before, and now I am showing results too!

Before the move from our small apartment, my fabrics lived all over the place. After a while, some fabrics moved to two large suitcases in ‘the shed’. And of course, I didn’t remember what I had. When I did remember a specific print, I often had a hard time locating it.

Color sorted fabrics: Green, Multicolored Stripes, Black. This bin still has space left, so I filled the right side with extra paper, and put the color sorted charms for Black and Multicolor stripes on top of that. Green charms went to a separate box, as the pile was bulky and didn’t fit flat on top without obscuring the view of black and multicolored stripes.

So, getting reacquainted with my fabric stash, and organizing it in one place, was a major goal for after the move. I researched types of shelving, containers and ways of organizing, and decided on plastic bins, instead of IKEA shelves or something. A system of bins is flexible both in placement and number, keeps fabrics safe from dust and from fading, and is fairly cheap.

The downside is that most plastic bins release acids, which may harm the fibers. To protect my fabrics, I lined my bins with acid free tissue paper, and I air my fabrics periodically. The paper means I don’t take advantage of the see-through properties of my bins. I have labeled them with the contents instead.

As I am not much of an actual quilter / sewist, most of my fabric is still some standard size rectangle without holes or narrow strips. My ‘scraps’ mainly consist of charms and layer cakes. So most of it folds neatly and lies flat in a consistent thickness.

Not all fabrics are sorted by color. This is a bin of mostly multicolor ‘collections’, of which I wanted to keep the fabrics together. There are Jane Sassaman fabrics, American Jane, Piece O’Cake and others.

I wanted bins that accommodate those folded fabrics efficiently, allowing me to get a good reading of the color, while viewing as many fabrics together as possible. For me, showing the short folded edges of vertically stashed fabrics turned out to be the most efficient.

I have one bin of Solids, Neutrals and Background fabrics. Although I really like solids, I don’t have much in store. What you see here is mostly what I bought some for projects I never actually started. I have shade cards and sample packs for several brands, (including Oakshott fabrics) so I can order just the amount I need, in the exact color I want, whenever the occasion arises.

This means height is the determining factor for picking the right bin. I looked for bins of about 27 centimeters [10.7 inches] high. A little bit of room on top of your fabrics comes in handy. In some boxes I put charms and scraps on top of the folded fabrics. But I didn’t want a lot of wasted ‘headroom’.

Bin sorted by color, with Orange, Yellow and Lilac Fabrics. The layer cakes, charms and scraps on the left are stored flat on top of the folded yardage.

I found that 45 liter bins accommodate three vertically stored rows of quilting fabrics side by side, with a bit of extra space to get my hands in, and pull out one piece of fabric without messing up the entire bin.

I combined and mixed several types of organization for my fabric stash. I organized some by color, others by type of fabric, and others by designer / collection. And I did some ‘suborganizing’, e.g. my substantial portion of Kaffe Fassett fabrics first by designer, next by ‘color family’, like brights or pastels.

Here is a bin sorted not by color initially. First the fabrics are sorted by designer (Kaffe Fassett) and next suborganized by color family. I labeled this bin ‘Kaffe Fassett Brights’.

Because I wanted to be able to stack my bins, I kept the type and size of bin consistent. This means that some bins are a bit too big for their contents. (I may need to buy more fabrics to keep my stacks from falling over! :-)) I used the same type of bins for fabrics other than store bought quilting cottons.

I have one bin for ‘old shirts’, and one for ‘interior decoration fabrics and garment sewing’ including kimono silks and Spoonflower sample prints.

The old shirts bin is only ‘organized chronologically’ ;-). Newly discarded shirts are thrown in on top. Some older ones already have the bulky parts, like collars, cuffs and seams cut off. Some are even cut up in rectangles or strips.

The other bin is equally unorganized with regards to color. Heaviest fabrics on the bottom, silks on top to prevent creasing, carefully layered with acid free tissue paper in between.

Bin with quilting cottons sorted by ‘collection’. In this one I decided to keep my fabrics of designers with a clear style together. There are Michael James stripes, Heather Bailey prints, and it is filled up with Kaffe Fassett Pastels.

While sorting by color, I chose to attack all of my charm packs and most of my layer cakes as well. Where possible, charms, layer cakes and scraps are kept in the bins with the matching color or designer, on top of the yardage and fat quarters.

The piles of charms in green, blue and red were too bulky to store on top, so they went to live together in an IKEA box (pictures further on). I also kept a separate box of ‘uglies’ and ‘hard to combine’ scraps and charms, so I can avoid them when I want.

Finally, there is one glass jar for really small scraps.

Blues Including Turquoise, and Reds. It may seem like very little blue and red. But there is more blue and red in the Kaffe Fassett bins, and a lot of blue in the old shirts bin!

While sorting, I found that blue and red very are often combined in one fabric print, so sometimes it is hard to decide if it should go with the Reds or with the Blues. It is easiest to keep them together. I also found that blue (often combined with red, or with pink) is the most prevalent color in my charm packs!

Because I have so many blue charms and layer cakes, I tried to sort them further, allowing me an easy overview. It is really easy to miss a specific color of charm when they are all stacked.

So I tried rolling them and making separate layers of rolls. But I abandoned that effort, since the rolls unrolled again when handled, and it took up too much space.

Two boxes of scraps and charms live on a shelf with the jar for really small scraps. The lower box has ‘uglies’ and scraps that are difficult to combine with other fabrics. The upper box has charms in blue, red and green (layered in that order, from the top).

The charm box opened. The colors are organized in layers, separated by acid-free tissue paper. I can easily lift each layer out of the box. I started organizing a better view of all of my blue charms and layer cakes by rolling them, but I quickly gave up.

Not all my fabrics or bins are pictured. I have two 70 liter ‘project bins’. They are bigger, so I can store background fabrics and batting with the fabrics for that project. One project bin has a lot of brown fabrics, mostly Kaffe Fassett.

Old picture of my room, with the brown Kaffe Fassett WIP in full view. My bins are still unorganized and have no striped easy DIY no sew stretchy lid covers yet.

The second project bin has a lot of cobalt blue Kaffe Fassett fabrics (no picture). There is also a bin of knitting yarns (in the picture above, with the red lid).

And finally, my shade cards and sample packs for solids are in a drawer, together with shade cards for quilting threads and color tools.

My drawer with shade cards for quilting threads and solid fabrics, sample packs and color tools.

I am very happy with my organized stash. hope you enjoyed this peek into my stash of ‘Stof Genoeg!’ (which means ‘Plenty of fabric or material’).

XXX Annika