I use plastic three drawer shelves, stacked two high. Each drawer has a color, except white, off-white and green have two drawers. I have a drawer for Christmas, one for floral, one for panels and two for novelty prints. I have all sizes in the drawer. Eventually, I will have some boxes for 2.5" squares, 5" squares and 2.5" strips.

Thank you every one for the suggestions, can't get out of the house this morning the driveway is a solid sheet of ice so I may have time to try some of them.

This is pretty much what I did for several years, and it worked great. I used a 6 x 12 ruler to roll my fabric, as that worked well in my drawers. For batting, I put 2 eye bolts in beams in the ceiling and used nylon cord to hang a "mini" bolt. I bought batting by the yard and had them roll it onto an empty bolt so I had a roller to run the cord through. I left enough cord on one end that I could lower the bolt to refill it, or to set it on the cutting table.

We moved into a new-to-us house and I don't have room for the dresser in my sewing room, so all the fabric (folded the same way) is on shelves in the closet. I now have a full bolt of batting hanging on my wall. I bought 2 closet shelf/rod brackets at the hardware store, along with a wooden closet rod. They are mounted just above my cutting table so I can unroll as much of little batting as I need.

love to sew-I don't remember where I bought the U shaped hangers but check out your local hardware stores, for the rod, I have an old wood curtain rod that I'll cut down to the length I need.

Oh, by the way I have 27 drawers full of fabric, not 2 like my original post sounded like. LOL

I think you have to start at the beginning, as I did. I thought about how I would look for fabric when I wanted to make a quilt. For me, a student of color, that was by color. I distinguish between orange, yellow-orange, and red-orange, for instance, so I had banker's boxes for each. I also have several boxes by theme, for instance, country or kid's or outdoor themes. I have a small collection of reds, whites, blues and those are set aside as a patriotic collection. So it's either by color or by theme, but mostly by color. I know that I will be consulting a color wheel when planning a quilt.

I stand the fabric up in the box so I can see everything at a glance. That's easy to do if the box is on it's end when loaded.

I have shelves on which the boxes live, and those have labels by color.

Fat quarters and everything but scraps go into the boxes. It's easy to find what I need.

I make clothing also, and that fabric has it's own storage area. For that, I store fabrics that will work together, color wise and by fabric content.

The above is for my own fabrics. I make a lot of quilts for homeless families, and have donated fabric. That is also in boxes on another set of shelves, but not as finely sorted. For instance, a box of reds might have red-orange, reds, pinks, red-violets, etc.

I keep in the sewing room only those things I am currently working on (multiple projects at any time) or plan to work on within 3 months.

Love the batting suggestion. That is cool. I usually have four rolls of a batting at a time since I do longarm quilting for others and my quest to do 120 ufos last year. I only have two left and love this idea of how to store them. Would get them off the floor and out of the way, now to have wall space to do that with. I will find it I am sure.

I'm short on wall space too. So I started putting fqs on their sides, in a clear tote, under the bed. DO NOT DO THAT! They breed under there!! I ended up with totes under 3 beds.I had to start all over with a new plan.So now, I have bookcases full of fqs, and yardage that I have rolled up on those comic book boards. Much easier to see what they are up to that way. :thumbup: I did learn that I must cover the bookcases tho....to keep the fabric dust & light free. If you are hanging yardage on hangers in the closet, don't forget to cover them (maybe with those dry-cleaning bags or something) otherwise, they can turn yellow at the fold. & If you don't refold them once in a while, or use them up, they can develop permanent hanger creases.:thumbdown:

My biggest issue is smaller pieces of batting...I don't want to waste them because they can be used for smaller projects. But they take up so much space!

I use those bags that you vacuum the air out of for batting scraps. When I need some, I'll open the bag, get enough to piece together to do my project, then vacuum it shot again. The batting pieces puff right up and the sealed bags don't take much space at all.

what a good idea!