Charming Squares
 

I've been buying lines or collections of charm squares from CT for a project. Now I have more than I need (surprise, surprise). How do you store your charm squares? By color, collection, designs, project, fabric type? What do you store them in? I picked up an Art Bin but now need to look at other options. Thank you!

I probably don't have as many as you have but I store mine in a plastic shoe box that I bought in the Dollar Store.

I put mine in a shoe bag I have hanging on my sewing area door. The bag has at least 20 pockets, can put 2 in a pocket and right now they are all filled.

Are they by color?

I found some cute covered, colored boxes (pink, blue, green) at Dollar Tree that are exactly the size to hold the charm squares -- I have a much larger tote with some that came from a guild swap, but going through that is daunting so I am trying to move everything to the smaller boxes that are easier to manage.

I keep my charm squares together as I like to buy in multiples and I have a dresser that I keep them in. I also cut up scraps with my GO cutter and those mismatched charms go into large totes.

Hey Neuras- unopened charm packs get stored in my precuts drawer as is.

Once they've been opened any leftover charms get mixed in with other leftovers and the ones that I cut myself from scraps. I store these in stacks in a shallow drawer separated as follows:
1. Solids and prints that read as solids
2. Prints
3. Batiks
Each of these stacks are sorted by value with darks on the bottom, mediums in middle and lights on top. Works pretty well for me, I can just lift the stacks out of the drawer and quickly pull out what I need for a project.

Rob

Hi. I'm a charm square addict/hoarder. I store mine in clear 3 gal Rubbermaid totes. They hold a LOT of charm pkgs. I stand the pkgs "on end". Mine are sorted by theme: kid/baby, floral, & season (fall/Halloween, spring/"happy" prints). I also have a Miscellaneous tote for tone on tone & graphic prints.

I store mine in two bins, one light and one dark.

I like to put small amounts of scraps in sandwich bags. Also when there are just a few charms left. I can dump them on my bed to find what I want and the edges don't fray. I reuse the bags, I have a container for them. What did we do without ziplock bags for sewing?

I've been ordering enough charm packs to make up the amount of pieces of fabric for at least 2 of each line of fabric. One of the most recent ones i received from CT had a variety to cover the rainbow. When I sort them, I place 4-5 pieces of each fabric in the group of colors in belongs to (yellows) but keep the entire line together in a baggie. I'm thinking that a this point, if I need black charms, I'll have to dig through several baggies to find the assortment of black hues to make my project work. There must be a more organized way my cluttered brain can't think of right now

I buy small Sterilite semi-clear plastic boxes with lid hinged at Dollar General for a $1. They are made to hold CDs. They are great and will hold about four charm packs. Also you can buy the little $1 sandwich containers that will hold one charm pack. They keep the edges from folding and make it easy to see what you have. I like them much better than ziplock bags.

The few I have bought stay on a pretty little shelf with the band around them. Misc ones I cut myself stay in a box that wet swiffler pads came in. I have 2 of those.

Very cool idea! I need to see if we have that store around here. Thanks!

I have used old Singer wood drawers for fat quarters. I have also used a round basket. Love seeing all the colors when I come in my sewing room.

I almost never buy precuts, so I only have a few. The batiks are with my other batik yardage. Others are in a sewing basket or in a container from JAF with yardage & supplies for the project I have in mind.

thank you for sharing all the great ideas

I keep any batiks together and all the rest of the 5" squares in another small tote. My fat quarters are by color too. But my scraps are by size starting with 1", 1.5", 2", 2.5" and so on up to 5" and then large pieces.