I have a suggestion. I visited a shop that was closing and asked for the boards. I was able to get a bunch of them free. See if any of the shops near you, or shops that store items in a similar way, would be willing to give some to you. It never hurts to ask.

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The vast majority of my stash started as FQs (I seldom by yardage unless it's for a specific project), I store it in totes by color or theme -- except my music fabric. It takes up two drawers in an old chest of drawers. Kits - either fabric purchased that way or collected by me are stored together and the put in a milk crate.

These pictures were taken a few years ago, so there has been some evolution, but the general storage is the same. The biggest issue is that when my mom passed away I brought fabric home and it's still stacked in boxes sitting around the room. But I'm using it. That's were many of my backings have come from lately. She would buy the rest of the bolt if she liked it!

I have a whole lot of reasons why I don't use regular bolt reels. If you leave them full size they take up twice as much space height wise as the little foam core boards and they're a whole lot thicker. If you decide to cut them, they're way harder to cut than the foam core boards. I do not care if they're free. The foam core boards only cost .16 cents to make since you get 5 full size and one half size board from each sheet. I can cut the dollar store foam core boards in just a few seconds with my rotary cutter and a ruler. Cardboard isn't nearly as sturdy width wise as the foam core boards. The foam core boards are uniform, the bolt reels are not all the same. I don't have a "shop" nearby but I do have a Dollar General a few blocks away.

Wow this is one gorgeous stash!

[ATTACH=CONFIG]354915[/ATTACH]I recently refurnished my studio and I now have two of these cabinets full of fabric. I agree it is a pain when taking the fabric out.. I love the idea of wrapping my fabrics. It looks a lot neater and I'm sure it is a lot easier to get them out and see them. My dh is cutting some pink foam board for me right now to see how I will like that.

I just got some foam board at my dollar store.....now to figure how to cut it best? My cabinets are about 20" deep..and the shelves are 11 1/2 inches between them........so I was thinking about 10x15 would be a nice fit for those shelves...but then I only get 4 pieces from each dollar foam board.....any sugggestions that would do better?

I organize my fabrics almost exactly like you do! I don't use foam. I do have two more "categories," though, flowers and cheaters. I roughly divide my big from small using the fat quarter size and above for the big. Little goes into little plastic boxes by color.

I bought the 'Billy' (from Ikea) open bookshelves that go less than a foot from the ceiling, and the long wall of my quilt room is full of these. I have 4 full bookshelves and there is a center bookshelf is about 14" wide with the same height as the rest of the shelving. The center one holds all my books. Magazine holders (metals ones, again from Ikea) hold all my magazines and are on the bottom shelves due to the weight. My fabrics are folded to fit on these shelves, which are around 11" deep. I have fabric sorted by colors: red, blue, green, yellow, rust/oranges, black, purple, and by types: metallics, batiks, Australian, Christmas, baby/kids, animals, and 'misc' (sky, oddities, bricks, rocks, etc). Works quite well and the shelving is quite sturdy enough to hold all the fabric on it. Am slowly cutting up the scraps and smaller amounts into the Bonnie Hunter system, and wow, do I have quite a pile in each size now. Those will eventually go into the plastic containers with labels. I'm not going to buy any more fabric until I use up quite a bit of what I already have!

Wow have I got things to learn :p I'm pretty new to all this but really surprised how quickly a stash grows :). How and where to store it I haven't really thought about. I'm drooling over the stashes shown yummy! My DH bought me a big old fashioned wooden country table and I have set it up in my family room (only one big enough) and have my sewing machine and cutting mat on it and the ironing board close by. It has some storage underneath I'm using but I'll need to think about this more. Thanks for the ideas.

A long-time quilter passed away and her husband invited several of her quilting buddies to come over and share her fabric stash. As her friends began pulling fabric off shelves and out of cabinets, her husband commented, "Wow, I had no idea she had this much fabric. There must be a couple hundred dollars worth of fabric here." All the women just smiled and looked at each other!

Thinking about turning my spare bedroom into a sewing room. I know it will get more use. Need help, any ideas will be helpful. Thanks

My sewing room was a spare bedroom - it had more light that the front bedroom, so at first I moved out the bed and made it a full fledged sewing room. Then a friend of mine had a murphy bed installed it solved everything. One of the old 'Simply Quilts" shows was about was about sewing rooms that can fold up quickly for a spare room. It was quite a show and the lady's desk was really great the way was she moved things around and it all went into the closet. I found the murphy bed made the most sense for me.

Wow...just call me Kermit lol I dream of having stashes that beautiful!!

I'm in the middle of a minor remodel and flipping bedrooms around and in the process I'm moving my stash into a bigger area so I won't have pictures for a while :) I'm converting my walk-in closet into the stash area. Bigger than a yard are going on foam cores I cut myself, yards down to 1/8thxWOF are rolled up and stored by color in hanging sweater organizers. smaller stuff is divided by color in clear plastic shoe boxes, an cut squares each have their own box....or at least that is what is will look like when it's finished!
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