I received a wonderful book for Mother's day called "Creating Your Perfect Quilting Space" by Lois Hallock. This book is awesome because the author is an engineer and uses principles of ergonomics and work flow and applies them to quilting needs. Then she demonstrates her principles in 6 different room makeovers. Not all of them are expensive either, includes many budget ideas, and uses rooms of different sizes.

She advocates having your fabric visible. Mostly accomplished by putting it on shelves and then sorted by rainbow color.

I have a lot of small pieces of material, leftovers from sewing that where given to me so I put them in those small pullout drawers,sorted by color, folded and set on edge so I can see each piece when I open the drawer.
Being a new quilter, only have one UFO and one PIG and about a dozen lg pieces of fabric but I am sure that will change in time
:lol: especially with the wonderful encouragement of my fellow quilters

Marybeth

Sounds like you girls have much more fabric than I do. I am in the process of organizing :cry: folding by colors and stacking on my closet shelf, don't have much room to keep alot. :D

We all have to be vert careful. We have the same disease. Sounds like a lot of gorillas are in the making. Didn't we just witness a 780# one that sold on eBay for pennies?

When I spoke of my organizing, I didn't mention my wool (from Woolrich) for braiding rugs, dressmaking fabrics, polartech, and decorating fabrics which are much less organized. I know my gorilla weighs over 780#. Fortunately, my daughter also sews and has her own stash of wools and quilting fabrics but somehow will make room for my leftovers when the time comes. She also has a stash of knitting yarns.

Now then, should we speak about our cache of quilting books and magazines? Unending . . . . I'm awaiting a copy of "Flower Pounding", like I need another idea book . . . .

Suzanne

Pulease lets not talk about magazines :!: :lol: There is a gorilla lurking there too. But in all honesty, some magazines that I have reread years later are often looked at from a different perspective than were originally and I find new ideas and wondered how come I never noticed that before.
So I hate to say it, but quilting mags are here to stay and it will be up to my daughter to donate them to Goodwill when the time comes, cause I sure can't part with them :!: :lol:

Solids, then large prints, then medium prints, then small prints. That is, until my daughters-in-law went thru it and didn't put it back in the proper places...

And, to store them I found some shoe racks at the Dollar Tree. The fabric fits really great in them. They have 6 sections and hold a lot of fabric. They look like little cubes one on top of the other. Right now I have them laying on their sides two deep until I get my spare closet back. Then, I will hang them - they velcro to the closet rod.

I have one of those shoe racks, never thought of putting fabric in it, but what a good idea, since I don't have loads of stash. I do store my extra
iron in one pouch. :)

Oh dear, I am so embarrassed :oops: :lol: My stash is an out of control gorrilla. I do try, and have such good intentions (sigh).

This is how things are meant to be, Generally sort by colours, but keep seperate, things like Christmas fabric, Multicoloured, Lights and Lrg pieces suitable for backing and backgrounds. Sadly things are very rarely how they're meant to be :lol:

But I was very good last year, over the years people (often non Quilting)trying to be helpful had given me bags of stuff for my quilt work, and although most of it wasn't really suitable I didn't want to seem ungrateful or impolite by refusing and then I wouldn't have the heart to throw it away.

So over the years the monster grew :lol:. In the end I decided I had to be really ruthless. I wanted my quilting Room back and wanted to Be able to find my fabrics I could use. Got a giant skip bin in and filled it up, Wasn't all fabric rubbish but a good portion of it was. So things are a bit better than they used to be, but only a bit :)

Wow...I have no order. I hate to say this, but my stash is two very large white garbage bags with everything just thrown in. I have 0 room in the house. I have a small corner behind an open door that I keep a box of supplies (from when we moved) my mat and ruler hang on the wall, my machine is back there, and the two bags of fabric. Someday I'll have a house large enough to accomodate my 3 kids and some space for my stuff.....(looking in the distance forlornly). All my PIGS are thrown on top. It's awful.

I don't have but 3 or 4 magazines either. I refuse to buy any until I have room for my things. Enough of my friends have subscriptions that I can look through theirs.

And I have two books ABC's of quilting (excellent for a beginner) and Courthouse Steps from Quilt in a Day.

Suz mentioned the books and magazines...well gals.....yeah that is a whole other beasty... but I have found too that quilting isn' the only "hobby' we may have....What about those yarns and hooks and needles and.....I think I maybe ought to build a smaller house with the room needed for my stash and equipment. :cry: I am packing it as tight as I can and there "jes ain' enough room!" :!:

Nina,

You say "little cubes". What are the measurements? Sounds like something I should be looking at.

My quilting magazines are here to stay, also. I often bring a stack upstairs and drool over them as I did several years back. It's like getting a new issue in each one. The quilt I will be making for one grandson is from a 2000 issue.

Suz