I used to sell patterns on ebay and had over 1,000 patterns. Now that I'm out of the ebay business, I'm trying to slowly get my patterns sold at garage sales I have. It's really sad though at the thought of so many people don't know how to sew. I've had comments from people when they saw all my patterns to ask "What are these" and another person said I haven't sewn since home ec in high school. But to answer your question the patterns that I've kept for myself I have organized by catagory first and then file them by the pattern number. works for me.