Quilt in a Day Forums

I have boxes full of odd pieces of fabric left over from various projects, all of them odd shapes and sizes. I need a suggestion on how to organize and store them so I can find a piece of fabric when I need it. I had read an article on-line on how to neatly fold fabric so you can find a particular print or color when needed, but can't remember where I saw it. Can anyone help me out of this mess of odds and ends?

I think organizing your fabric has to be based on how you quilt. I tend to consider anything less than a fat eight 'scrap' and chop it up into pre-determined sizes for use in a future scrap quilt. But I'm a scrap quilter and don't care if I hadn't cut up that square into 4 2" squares I'd have the perfect piece for the center of that Ohio Star. There's another 'perfect' piece or combination which will work just as well.

Although I'm doing better, cutting up my scraps when I finish a project, I have a basket that's full of those scraps. This weekend I pulled all the blue and neutral out (so now the basket is fluffed and it looks like I have even MORE scraps. I'm planning a blue and neutural quilt so I need tons of 2" squares and either 4" squares to make HST or 3 1/2" strips to make HST using the Easy Angle ruler. I've spent a good part of the day doing nothing put pressing the fabric. But in the end I'll have a "free" quilt.

Oh - I don't sort by color - but again that works for me. My pre-cut shoe boxes are full, so I really do need to do figure out if I want to go to larger boxes, or stay with the same size and sort dark / light or some other way.

Believe it or not, I do use these pieces that I precut. I'm currently working on a quilt called Oklahoma Backroads and all of the fabric came from my pre-cut boxes.

As I work on a project, if the scraps are fat qt. size or larger I fold them neatly and store them with my fat qts. Scraps smaller than a fat qt. I toss them into boxes labeled dark, medium and light. I don't precut them at all.I press and cut when I am ready to use them.

well i fold anything the size of a fat quarter and put in on the shelfby colors, any thing smaller goes into one of those clear plastic shoe holders that hang on the door. i put them into the pockets by color , red, green, blue, etc. i do a lot of appligue quilts so i always have the right color piece when needed. i don't cut anything into squares until i know what quilt it is going into. hope this helps. you can get the shoe holders at the dollar store or walmarts.
Barbara