JanieH

I use plastic shoe boxes and separate by categories: quilts, bags and totes, embroidery, wall hangings/table runners, etc. They are in the bottom drawer of my file cabinet and the patterns can stand upright in the boxes so I can flip through them. I try to keep them in alphabetical order by designer/company but, alas, they frequently get out of order. About once a year I go through them and put them in order and take out any I don't want anymore. I also try to keep a list of them all, one that has everything in alphabetical order and one that has them sorted by category and try to keep it updated also. I bought some of the plastic bags from ebay and when I get a pattern that is smaller than the others, I put it in the larger bag. I had found that many of my smaller patterns got lost otherwise among the larger bags.
I can always use the smaller bags for sorting buttons, notions, etc.

I keep the patterns I have pulled from magazines or printed from the internet in plastic sleeves and sorted into 3 ring binders that are labeled with the same categories.