Tartan

Binding quilt strips I wind up around my hand and fold flat in zip lock bags. Pre-packaged seam binding I keep on the cardboard they come on and put in a zip lock bag. My zippers I put a safety pin through the hole in the zipper pull and then put all the safety pins onto metal shower rings and hang them up. I keep all the different lengths on different shower rings so I can go right to the length I want.

BellaBoo

I use to save all the left over strips of stuff. One day I realized I never used them, just saved them so I stuffed all of them in a pillowcase, sewed up the end and gave it to the neighbor for his doghouse. I haven't missed having them at all.

IAmCatOwned

Buy those photo or shoeboxes. Label the outside and sort by type. But the boxes in a bookshelf. My sis has tons of this stuff and did that some years ago and it's great! I usethose plastic containers from frosting to store random safety pins, buttons, eyelets. They also go on a shelf.

Scissor Queen

I realized after 5 moves in 6 years life's too short to fill it up with junk. All the small stuff like that went by the wayside. If I really need it again I'll buy it again. The fabric is going to have to get reduced too. It's all in storage right now and come spring when the weather is nice enough to go out there and sort thru I'm only going to keep the things I really, really want and the rest will get sold on craigslist.

ghostrider

I store all my triflings like that in the wastebasket under my work bench. When it gets full, off to the dump they go. Scissor Queen is right, life's too short to let that kind of 'discarderata' pile up.

mariatherese

That's probably a very smart advice. However, quilting fabric usually goes for around $25 per yard here so I hesitate to throw even the smallest piece out. I fringe if I have to fussy cut. And all other kinds of haberdashery is kind of expensive as well.

Phyllis42

Or possibly somebody makes dog/cat beds for the Humane Shelters and would LOVE those scraps for stuffing.

mariatherese

Usually when dogs are rehomed here, they stay at their owner until they have a new home. And the law which regulates how you are allowed to keep a dog is very strict. You're not allowed to leave an adult dog by itself for longer than 6 hours etc. I googled and couldn't find a shelter nearby.

But keep the good ideas coming. I know I need to sort the stuff somehow. Maybe use some of the stuff for gift wrapping Christmas gifts.

lynda53

I have a shelf up high in my sewing room so I purchased glass cookie jars (10 in total)that sit on an angle & now I can see what I have in each one.

noveltyjunkie

It's a great time of year to make these up into bows to decorate gifts, use in wreaths, hang on your tree......