Holy UFO's woman!!! You win!! Now I don't feel so bad about my pile!

I am still trying to get my fabric organized. I take a strip of 2 1/2 off of the end and measure the balance of my larger pieces and mark bin on the yardage piece of paper that I attach to the 2 1/2 piece of material. I then put these strips in color order. I am however thinking of changing this to just cut off 2 1/2 square attach to 3 X 5 card with yardage, bin and color sequence. The strips I guess I will use as jelly rolls and make one extremely large quilt. This is work in progress. My fat quarters I just look at a lot and think of when I can get busy using them in something. I think I am UFO Queen. Emily in FL

I blame a friend. I was sitting in a board meeting for my local quilt guild one day and she popped off with, "I have 36 UFOs." Not that I'm competitive or anything :roll: but I thought "I bet I have that many." Then I went home, pulled out a 4x6 index card and started going through my things. The list got longer and longer and soon my stomach was sitting in a puddle in my shoes. (Or maybe it was something else, the list sort of scared me with its length!) I knew I was in trouble when I needed a second index card. Now, in my defense, when I first started quilting it was considered very bad to do any sort of quilting by machine, at least in the snobby group I belonged to in California. Since then it's become acceptable but at the time I did everything by hand. I kept putting off the larger pieces because it takes so long to hand quilt them, which is why the king sized quilt top has been a UFO for so long. We were finally able to afford to get a new machine (it was on lay-away about a year but I love my Janome 6600!) and last year I decided to bite the bullet and learn to machine quilt. Since then I've been slowly wittling down my list, though I'm afraid it's going to take a couple more years. I figure it took me 18 years to build up the huge stack of UFOs I have so it'll at least take me 3-4 years to get it back down to a managable size. Meanwhile, I keep seeing all these wonderful quilts I simply must make, so I'm only doing about 1 UFO a month at this point. I joined a UFO Bee and am in a UFO Challenge, which helps because it forces me to stick to a deadline and actually work on at least one UFO at all times.

I also store my fabric in this fashion. First by size, then by color. I don't have any batiks yet, but keep my Asian-style fabrics separate. I have shoeboxes holding fabric meant for a particular project with a picture of the that project taped to the end of the box (to help me remember!)

anything 2 yars are over i bolt i shelve all solids together and all prints together then a fat quarter drawer and anything less than2 yards i fold and ihave a solid drawer and a print drawer

mine never stays sorted for some reason...too much fondling LOL

Everyone has a storage method that works for them (either in their minds or in actual fact).
My sister buys fabric for A project and puts the fabric away and forgets she has bought it (sorry Marnie!) and the rest of her fabrics I think she sorts by colour.

I have a bins of novelty, Christmas, white and off white tone on tones, baby quilt fabric (mostly pastels), panels, and then I sort by colour. Fat quarters of all descriptions are kept separate and if I am collecting fabrics for a project I store them in zippered fabric magazine holders that have a clear plastic front ( kinda like the plastic zippered bags linens come in but these are mostly fabric so the materials inside can breathe).

Something I started doing that is a useful tip I believe is when I fold up a piece of left over batting I measure it and pin a tag to it with a safety pin (20X100, 36X60, etc) Saves a lot of anguish when I am looking for batting for table runners and wall hangings, baby quilts, etc.

PS... I am waiting for a snow day to sit and watch DVDs and sort my scrap basket... I am going to use Quilt magazine's Chunk,Charm, Chip, Stray, Strip, String method!

Wow, I need a class in organization. Mostly,I put mine in drawers -neatly folded - by size. But, I'm with LindaR, they don't stay that way because I'm always 'pilfering'. (Fondling, just seems... snicker, something else!) I love scraps, little pieces about 4" worth and I put them in ziplocks by colors. It is so cool, because I can piece a little block if I get tired of my big stuff. AND I like doll quilts for my "Burden Bears". Lots of interesting answers, great subject.

What she said.
But, ever do I STRIVE :oops: