I have mine in chest with 4 large drawers, smaller chest with 4 drawers, 2 roll around plastic drawer towers, they have 11 drawers each. All my built in cabinets have all my other hobby things in them. Notions, books, wip, counted cross-stitch, embroidery, notebooks with quilting patterns, sewing machines, crochet notions, batting, anything else I can find for quilting. gonna post some pics someday.

hello, what a wonderful idea. i have on old filing cabinet in the shed that hasn't beenused for years i shall now use it for my material.

thanks again, jane

Hi AliKat,
I love Ikea - Hopefully getting a new Store near us soon, planning permission has recently gone into the local council - YES !!
But I digress, Thank you so much for your suggestion, brilliant, just what I was looking for !!
DottyD.

I absolutely love your idea! Very ingenious, very neat, and very inexpensive compared to all of the cabinets and storage closets.

I have made cards that are about 7" X 12. Walmart sells boxes fairly cheap. The ones I buy are about 64 cents. I cut them up with a craft knife and get 16 cards from the box. then I wind up my fabric. I have mostly small yardages of fabric due to my tight budget. I put them in a bookcase. I have them sorted by some groups such as Falll colors, or christmas fabrics, I have one large group of prints with favorite flowers, and another with berries. I like this because I can see all that I have to choose from. I store fat quaters in small shoe boxes sorted by color.

I was lucky and started out with a totally blank room so was able to pick anything I wanted for storage. I finally bought four, six foot tall, double doors plastic cabinets from the Wally store. Very inexpensive compared to built-ins. I store fabric flat fold now but would like to have them upright like the stores. I can see all my fabric for easy choices and the doors keep out the light from several windows.

Right now I'm using some snap boxes I got from Wal-mart on sale. They snap together and come in 3 sizes. I use them for fat quarters and "honey"? buns (small), small scraps in ziplocks (medium), and larger pieces up to a yard (large). I have the yard or more in a giant gift bag leftover from my daughter's baby shower. Projects in the works are kept in gift bags that we have saved.

i just came back from j's and looked at a storage unit there. you might have seen it. it's a column of drawers, some about 3" deep and some about 1.5" deep. it's framed in black and made of plastic. when i asked the price, the young man separated it into three sections, three very thin drawers and four thick drawers each and told me each section was - are you ready? - $80.00.
since i was looking at the whole column as a good storage unit, it would cost $240.00 for plastic. one of the handles was already broken off and it was tilting. all this for $240.00. that's why people shop ikea. at least you're getting something that approximates wood for that price.

That is an ingenious idea. I love it. I am new and have not much material yet. Do you just buy a yard or two when you see something pretty? To accumulate that much, I guess that is what you do.

Jeanne,
There are some really good ideas here. We're lucky we have this forum to share.

As for me, I started with purchasing only the fabric I needed for a specific pattern.

Then I moved into fat quarters to add as fill-in's and interest to the pattern.

Then I decided to buy half yards, resulting in 2 fat quarters, which cost more than 1 fat quarter but less than 2 fat quarters.

Then I decided to buy a yard and a half, so I would have a square (for little baby blanket backings), plus some left over.

Then I decided I should buy more - if fabric was on sale. I could use it for a focal point for a new pattern. Besides I was planning to retire from my job and I wanted to have plenty in case I couldn't afford it.

At about this time, I really couldn't find any particular piece of fabric - things were too chaotic. Had I had the forum then, I would have started this topic! Anyway, I tried a few things and finally ended up with my lateral filing cabinets.

Now I don't buy much fabric, cause I can find what I've already bought.

And that's how I buy/bought fabric!

Linda