organizing fabric color order or type?
 

Hi, what's the best method to organize fabric? I have them folded by the ruler method, but not sure how to stack them. Do you find color order is best? Or collection ? Designer? modern vs. traditional?? How does everyone sort their fabrics out? Thanks!! Bee

This is something I am going to start working on. I just ordered some comic boards to get all my fabrics out of their nooks and crannies and organized in a book case. I haven't decided how to organize it yet - I do like the idea of by color - but still undecided.

I like the color order idea too, but then I have a halloween collection and want to keep that seperate and started a little christmas section. I also have a collection by a certain designer I like, and not sure i want to mix them in with the rest, so its getting a little tricky!

I don't have any homespun or flannel. All my yardage is ruler folded. I have the obvious Christmas & fall fabrics separate. If I purchased several fabrics from the same line, I group those together (not many of these) the rest I have by color.

I put all my whites, off whites, blacks, white on whites, cream on cream and black on blacks together. Then I put all my solids together using Roy G. Biv (the order of the color spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet)
then my prints go on the shelves according to the color of the background or prominent color in the design, again using Roy G. Biv. All of my holiday fabrics are sorted by holiday but are all together in the same section of shelves. All my batiks are together as are my Asian prints. My child prints are together on another shelf. My striped fabrics are grouped together. All flannels and fleece are together also. The fabrics that I have slated for a project are grouped together on another shelf. I have all my fabrics wrapped around boards that I cut from sheets of acid free foam core boards. My fat quarters and pre cuts fill up wooden cubby shelves. I am fortunate that we just moved into a house that has a 16 x 34 room that already had a wall of shelving and I brought my 3 sets of shelving from our old house. I'm not even close to having this room put together; lots of boxes still unopened!!!

I sort by color primarily. The only fabrics that are not grouped in the color stacks are brights(for kids quilts), Christmas and Batiks. Even at that, these three are grouped by color within their own stacks. Hope this helps.

I guess that I am the real odd ball here then. I sort mine by size/yardage. Everything is visible and I know when I touch a fabric, exactly how much of it I have. Before I did this, I would find a fabric, fall in love and not have enough for what I wanted. So - sorting by quantity.

I sort by color. I only have 100% cotton so no need to worry about that. I have one stack for very busy prints that do not have 1 dominant color. I mix batiks, shirting prints, etc. in my quilts and only worry about color, value, and scale. So sorting by color works best for me.

I sort by color mostly with fabrics ruler folded and stacked on shelves. Novelty or holiday fabrics have stacks of their own. Specific collections or projects pending stay together....at least for awhile. I have scrap bins that are separated by lights/mediums/darks. I find fabric organizing to be very therapeutic...order form chaos:)