Organizing fabric by value, anyone done this?

[khowardquilts]

I don't need to sort by value, I already know that my stash leans heavily toward medium colors. I had a hard time picking fabrics out for a quilt last year when I needed light, medium and dark.

Kathy

[sadiedaisy1]

Quilter7, you are right! If I could control myself to work on only 1 or 2 projects my sewing room would feel much bigger! LOL I'm definitely grateful for my own room to do my sewing in. I really admire those that are using their dining rooms, dens, etc. for a place to sew. A lot of them get more done than I do.

sewbug, good ideas on storage. I also like your idea of scanning the fabrics to find the values. And that's a great way to get rid of scraps. I'm sure the guild loves it when you come in with your basket of scraps!

This is a good topic!

[rosebud3]

Great topic. You ladies have given me something to think about. If I ever have time to re-organize, I am going to have to sort my stash. Color????Value????FQ????Cotton????Blends????Other????. I was going through my stash to find just the right colors for my DD's DWR and found 90% or more of my fabric I have saved for quilting over the many years is everything but cotton. What do you do with non-cotton stash?
Mary

[Joannequilts]

Hey Mary, why not make an entire quilt out of the non-cottons? Alot of the fabrics may be poly-cotton blends and as long as they are ALL poly-cotton blends you should be able to use them. My husband had a quilt from an old aunt - it was all polyester knit. Not my choice, but alot of the poly-cotton blends are pretty! If you can make a quilt out of denium and T-shirts you could use anything!!

I know what y'all mean about the sorting problem. I, too, have piles of the "one line of fabric", and piles of Civil War stuff, and vintage fabrics, and 30's stuff, and baby stuff....then there are the Christmas stuff, batiks,...thennnnnnn on and on!!! I WANT TO BE ORGANIZED!!!

You should've seen the mess I had when my DGD wanted a "green" quilt--I pulled out every green I had in my stash. It was all organized before THAT!!! Now it's just a total mess...

[sewbug]

I put pics on photo page of my fabric and storage. It's always an ongoing project to sort, fold, and store stuff.

[TooMuchFabric]

I'm not a very organized person but I do like to be able to find my fabric. I tend to organize in several ways. Solids are organized in light, medium, dark; coordinating fabric is sorted together; patterns are sorted by color; themes (holidays, western, childrens, etc) by theme; then there is always some that doesn't fit in any of the categories so it gets to be kept separate.

I love reading how everyone does their sewing rooms/quilting studios.
I especially like the pictures. Great ideas and inspiration.

Jo Ann

[Quiltmom]

I have sorted my fabric so many times it would be easier if I put wheels on them to go from one plastic container to another. Sometimes I think they are one value and the next time I put it in a different container. Two things i keep in specific containers is my Amish fabric that i bought on my vacation to Intercourse Pa. this year, and my Civil War Reproduction fabrics that i collect. When I sorted my fabric this last time I had a large bag of pretty fabric, but i wondered why I bought it. This bag I took to the local Senior Citizens Center where they do quilting, and they were happy to get it. I felt that someone would get some good out of my "fabrics that looked great when I bought them".

[live2quilttwo]

I try not to over sort. I sort by color, then within each color pile I have solids on the bottom of the pile and prints on top. I don't have a real big stash (piles are about 9" high ea, 6 " wide) so it is pretty easy to pull out each color pile , look thru them and still keep them pretty organized. The only other pile I have is Christmas fabrics and I don't have many of them at all. I do have small totes for squares, strips, fat quaters and scraps. That is enough organization to calm my OCD tendencies...LOL.

I love the feel and smell of material and often pull out a pile to fondle for no reason other than to dream up new color combinations and patterns.

Ruth