I organize by background color, or if a particular color seems to be the prevalent color. I keep all flannels, homespuns, orientals, Christmas together in their separate drawer/s and category. I do have 2 drawers full of "to do" fabrics. Each color or type of fabric has it's own drawer: 4 of white background, etc. All of "non" cotton fabrics are in large totes stored in the "storeroom" along with several machines, patterns, and other miscellaneous other sewing "stuff".

Cardboard from fabric bolts should be o.k. after all, they once had fabric wrapped on them. Cardboard boxes are sometimes treated with chemicals that will fade any fabric that touches them. I learned that the hard way!

HAHAHA me too!

I recently went through all my stash, which is very small compared to many, but it still needed organized.

I first removed all the stuff I had purchased for specific projects and that's all in 1 bin now. The rest I pretty much organized best I could by "theme" I guess you could say. My patriotic/americana is all together, my florals are all together, my asian/oriental is all together, etc.... that's working best for me now.

You just have to find what works best for you! Good luck!

Do you keep only squares? How about rectangles?

So let's say you have a 7" leftover piece. Do you trim that to a 6" square, or into two 3.5" squares? How do you decide? This is something I struggle with obviously.

I too am in the process of organizing and I started organizing by color because that is the way my mind works when I am looking for something. I originally had it stacked on the bookshelf but it kept falling over so I found some small milk crates at the dollar store that allow me to fold the fabric in a nice square and stack them on the shelf.

I used fabric shop cardboard bolts and found if I kept the fabric on them too long, the fabric got white faded lines on the spots that went "around" the edges of the boards. Maybe the cardboard is treated with something that causes that, or maybe isn't treated with whatever is supposed to stop that from happening. I figure it doesn't happen in fabric stores because the fabric gets sold quick enough? Anyway, now I'm using boards I bought from polarnotions.com. that I saw advertised in a quilting magazine. Haven't had them long enough to say if anything goes wrong yet but they're nice boards and makes my quilting room look like a fabric shop. Easier to see the fabric choices I have.

I think the plastic bins I was using gave my fabrics a funny odor. Maybe the type I have are too airtight like someone else mentioned. Anyway the odor is hard to get rid of so I don't use those any more.

It's a constant problem for me too. The more organized I get, the less organized I feel, when I go looking through my fabrics, lol.

Is THAT what you're suppose to do with it?

Oh my gosh you sound just like my grandma, she died 10 years ago at 98 years old, but the way you said that I can just hear her. lol

sometimes I sort by color. Sometimes I sort by print. Always seperate flannels and batiks. Then sometimes I sort by project. And sometimes I have my neice sort by however she wants.