Need help sorting fabric.
 

I am getting ready to sort a large amount of fabric. When you have a piece that is white with pink dots or white with thin green and yellow lines, which pile should I put it in?

Step back- squint- what color do you see?? then sort in that pile..

I think that's a personal thing depending on how you are sorting. I have my civil war all separate and for that if the white is the dominent color then I'd put it with the white and so on. For my other fabric, I'm still working on my system but I keep flannels together, I also keep kids fabric together; mainly because my daughter raids it once in a while and that is where she'd go and it limits her from going all thru it. I recently got a bunch of fabric and I'm also sorting it by type; some of it is for decorating, there is homespun and since I want to make a french braid if I ever get enough (I'm too broke to buy any now). I have a lot of large florals and that is together. Then there is alot the is color coded going dark to light. This is what makes since to me because of the way I quilt. I also have 30 to 40 fabric and thats also done separtely. Figure out how you think you'll use it and try to come up with a system that will allow you to easily find what you need or see what you have when you decide you want to make something. I also don't have what you would call large amounts of fabric and from what I've seen on here most wouldn't call it a stash so I might do it differently if I can every afford to have a "stash". Good luck; it's a good thing you are doing.

When I look at the fabric, what color strikes me? If the pink dots strike me most, it goes with the pinks. If the white background is what I first notice, it goes with whites.

I have all my 30's fabrics in a separate 3 drawer cabinet sorted in colors. Other fabrics are sorted by floral & colors etc. and type of fabric. I try to use colorways to keep them separate. That's about all the farther I go before it all becomes overwhelming to me.

I too have a large stash.
I sort by colour and in addition have separate collections of stripes, plaids, batiks, 30s, novelities, childrens,dots and a couple more I can't offhand remember.

I would put white w/ other colors in them in a separate pile if I had enough of them.

a great question with some awesome answers. I keep holiday, animal print and juvenile fabric separate. But have struggled with the same problem on a lot of the others.

I sort my fabrics different, this means I take my favorite designers separate: all Fassetts together , all AmyButler, PhilipJacobs and BrandonMarblys. My Batics are together, cat fabrics and dots and my redworks too. The rest I sorted by colours!

Thank you for all the help. Keep the suggestions coming. I am formulating a plan in my mind.

White with pink dots would go into my pinks. Pink with white dots would go into my pinks. Funny how we all do it differently. I do keep all my Hoffman in one spot, all my Kaffe Fassett and the like in one spot. Christmas and holidays in one spot and childrens in one spot, the remainer goes by colors.

I sort by colors, Christmas, Australian, baby/child, novelties (fisherman, bricks, rocks, sky, etc), metallics, batiks, brights, flannels, minkee, fleece and All Creatures Great & Small (animals/birds/fish from all over the world - eventual quilt for me!). Works quite well for me. Am working on getting all the scraps cut into sizes for quilts (thank you, Bonnie Hunter!), and those sizes are stacked on shelves for right now - but are very quickly going to overcome those shelves, so will go into clear storage bins then.

I have several different areas for sorting. I have my general fabrics sorted by color. I just by what color is the most prominent when I look a the fabric. I also sort novelty fabrics by subject matter-Christmas, Fall, Halloween, Snowmen, I Spy, etc. I have a large collection of CW fabrics-I sort them by color, but I also keep my Jo Morton fabrics separate from the other CW fabrics. (I have used them in swaps with friends and I like to be able to grab one easily). Special fabrics, like Minke, flannels, 1930s, homespuns, Kansas Troubles, hand-dyed, all have their own areas within my stash. It took a while to get all of my fabric sorted, folded and on the shelves where I wanted it, but it has paid off in the end-I can reach in and pull out the exact fabric I am looking for very quickly. It's a real time saver when I am on working on a new quilt.

There are always those pieces that either don't fit anywhere well at all - or could go into a couple of categories.

Example: My black and white cat prints - do they go with the cat prints or with the black and whites?

Example: The multi-color floral that doesn't have any dominant color - or many colors that seem equally bright - (I've started a separate stack for these)

This is how I did it: All whites, off whites, cremes and blacks go together. Then comes all my solids, then my stripes, then dots. Next comes my whites with black prints and blacks with white print. Next is prodominently black fabrics. Then predominately cream and brown colored fabrics . Holidays are together, Batiks are together, Asian are together, College fabrics together and special collections such as Dr. Seuss are together. Then I sort the rest of my fabric by ROY G. BIV, the colors of the rainbow. Whichever color is most dominant dictates what color group it goes in.

I use the 'background color'. If the background is blue, it goes with the blues, white or off-white goes with the whites, etc. This works for me generally, until the other day when I was looking for a specific fabric on the 'green' shelf, and the background was actually off-white. I don't think there is a 'perfect' system, just one that works most of the time. I do have a separate shelf for a project that is still in construction so I don't accidentally use an already designated fabric for a 'quick project'. Holiday specific fabrics get categorized for 'fall' or "Christmas" on a separate shelf or bin.

I sort by colour and type. All batiks are together in the same baskets, all blues, reds etc. When it comes to multi coloured prints or a fabric that can't be defined clearly by a colour, I then sort on the size of the print into small medium and large scale prints. Scraps are sorted and stored based on size only.

I work pt at a fabric store and sort my fabric similar to that. "Generic" cottons together by color, "designer" cottons by designer/fabric line, etc. Think of how you would look for a particular fabric when you enter a fabric store or quilt shop. It also works well to put your fabric on comic book boards, then your fabric can be stood up and it's very easy to see what you have. They cost about $12-$13 for 100 at Amazon.

Good luck - post pics!!!

I agree with the above. The color that pops out at you when you look at it.

If you have enough 'dot' fabric, I'd put it into its own section, or consider a 'brights' area. I ended up with a 'brights' section in my fabrics for that very reason -- those bright colors were beacons if sorted into colors, and I often want only 'brights' in a project, like a baby or child's quilt, so picking from that area of my stash really works for me.

I usually sort by dominant color. So pink with white dots would go in the pink pile.

The largest portion of my stash is on open book cases. The windows are UV protected and face north. The shelves are filled with 1/4 - 1yd pieces, folded into a size no larger than 5 x 9". The 5" side is on the "book spine" side of the shelf and has a fold to easily see the fabric. There are 5 stacks on each shelf. They are divided into sections: solids, looks like hand dye, christmas, multicolor, oriental, black & white, flesh tone, stripes, browns, greys, silk, 30's, and the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green blue, purple). When a type of fabric will make 2 stacks, it gets seperated out. Projects in progress are in "ArtBin" totes, so there's fabric in them too. And "thinking about it" is stacked anywhere there's a flat surface. As you can see, my system is morphic- it changes with what I'm working on. UFO's: probably 40+ are hung in the closet, in ArtBin totes, in drawers, on the design wall; I give myself permission to put something aside that has me stumped or there's a deadline for something else. It's not a job, it's a passion. Large pieces are stored in the hall closets. As my style of quilting has changed and become more defined, my stash has changed.

Lots of great ideas here - I also use many of them. Sort by era (30s, civil war, etc) color and size - all big enough for backing a quilt is stored in one place.

Background color is what i use.

I do what most have suggested...keep in themes, but I also have Large quantity pieces that I might use for a backing in one location.

I also have landscape type fabrics together since I do a lot of applique and often need grass or water...etc. I have several plastic drawers filled with small quantities sorted by color for applique use also.

This is a problem I think we all have. We all have different solutions as you can see. A lot depends on space as well of fabric theme or color. Now that I have a whole room, although a small one it is easier for me now. I have a lot of furniture in my quilt room that is recycled. I have two tall book cases with adjustable shelves. On those I have fabric and two shelves of quilting books. If you ask at Joanns of your local quilt shop they will probably be happy to give you the empty cardboards that the bolts are wrapped on. I cut them with an exacto knife so I have one thickness of width by 11 1/2 inches. You can get at least four from one board. I wrap yardage on them and stand them up on the shelves by color. Fat quarters and scraps are in clear shoe box size bins from dollar tree by color. I do keep my holiday, civil war, and 1930s fabrics seperate, but using the same system. I have another book case that I keep the totes on. My machine is on a used desk with some drawers I keep small notions in, all that stuff you had to have that you don't really need at all. The best thing was wrapping the fabric on the cardboards, the stacking always ended up in an untidy mess.

I have 8 of those 32-gallon clear storage bins and 6 smaller bins plus 6 of the decorative oversized hatbox type containers, on a couple of chrome storage racks from Home Depot. They slide out easily, heavier ones toward the bottom. I sort by flannel, children's flannel, terrycloth, chenille, novelty, 30's, holiday, batik, cotton, and project. I have two large bins of gallon-size plastic bags containing leftover fabric by project. That doesn't work too well, but I've yet to figure out a better way. So I inevitably pull out a bin and sort it on a cutting table to get ideas. I also try to buy all or most of the fabric for a project at one time, especially when it's a specific line, and those go in bins and boxes by themselves. Overall it works well enough, since I don't need to rummage too much. I am collecting chenille for a baby quilt (with minkee on the back! So soft!) snd am a fat quarter-fanatic, so i wind up with ;ots of uncategorizable stuf. Have tried putting all the blue, green, etc. in their own bags, but then I come to the jelly rolls, and they pretty much have to stay together by roll. Then I sometimes have larger amounts (like a yard or more) left after a quilt, but there aren't enough of those to really categorize, so I keep the projects together, in case I want to make a two-patch for a pillow sham (haven't yet, but I might!) I think there is more heart/soul than brain involved in my sorting. I believe that, as long as you can find what you need in under a minute, you're organized enough, no matter what it looks like. And quilting is a very artistic, creative pastime, so I get lots of ideas from random bits of fabric that appear next to something unrelated.

Sounds like a great way to me!
Country1

I sometimes struggle with the sorting of fabrics.

What I found that works best for ME is to look at the background
color, is it predominate over any other color? if yes then I put it into
that pile (predominately black background goes into the black pile etc.).

If there is a variety of colors in equal or close to equal amounts then
I put it with a "multi-color" pile, you would be surprised at how much
fabric I have in this pile.

Of course this might end up changing as I get going more with sorting
fabrics to share with my daughter who is beginning quilting. She doesn't
need to go to a fabric store to buy. All she has to do is go shopping at
"moms" place.

LOL

I sort calicoes and "regular" quilting fabrics by color with a few exceptions. I keep blacks/white; red/white; blue/white together. I keep my Thimbleberries separate (but haven't sub-sorted them by line). Other categories are Civil War fabrics, 30's fabrics, juvenile prints, panels, patriotic, seasonal/holidays, border prints, homespuns, neutrals. backings and shirtings (which are my newest "thing"). I'm still trying to come up with better organization with scraps. I keep fat quarters in a cd tower and scraps (depending on size) in drawers of an old bureau but really like things out where I can see them.

That is a problem. I have all my polka dots together, my stripes together, my hand dyed fabric together. You really need to figure out the easiest way to find what you need when you want to make something. Do what you think will work for you or so what I did and called my friend over for two days she sorted it all out while I folded and fed her!!

That's a "which came first, the chicken or the egg" kind of question. I resort frequently when my brain is on overload! Sometimes by fabric line, then by color, then by theme, then by pattern requirements...then it starts all over again depending on the time of day, season, holiday.

I have recently re-done my sewing room and found that when sorting fabric if I put an off white with red and pink flowers in my red pile.....it looks out of place. So I moved it to the white background pile....still not right so it is now with the pinks. Apparently I see pink when I look at that piece. Funny how different colors scream at you if they are placed in the wrong pile.

Let's see, I use a "Mary system" basically don't spend any time debating it....go with the gut/first reaction. If it's one of those fabrics that this won't work for, I use the background color. After that, it goes in a "who knows" pile, because really, who knows which color it is. Like most, I have special fabrics, 1930's, batiks, etc.

I have a space designated "can't decide the color". Looking for something in a paticular color, helps define the color.

This was a great thread for me. I am getting shelves and 12 clear containers for my fabric. I can hardly wait to get it put together! Right now I just have one huge, heavy, overflowing tub of fabric. Then small stacks around the room.

I just put an Ikea storage shelf, including side table, into my sewing room. This thread has given me much food for thought! All I was thinking was folding to fit!!!

I have 4 big bins labeled
"Eeny,"
"Meeny,"
"Miney" and
"Mo."

Just kidding. I sort my fabrics in a ROY G BIVly way in a dresser. Blacks, white, creams and greys go at at the end.
Works for me; my stash is not large.

I couldn't decide where to keep a layer cake -- it was easier to just make a quilt out of it. The quilt is now in my closet waiting to go to the quilt show. :D

Hello

I sort my designer and ranges ie all my figtree ranges together, all my 3 sisters ranges together etc, I also group my civil war together, my flannels, my geometrics or obvious moderns together. I keep all my vintage fabrics together. My liberty lawn are also separate. Anything left without a home is then separated by colour.

.......which makes me realise I need to get sewing!