How often do you organize your fabrics
 

I moved my sewing stuff from a small 8' x 10' room to a 12' X 14' with 2- 6' closets about 3 yrs ago. My fabrics are on selves in the closets, each closet covered with a curtain. As much as I tried to keep it organized it has got a little messy.

The UFO are in bins with labels stacked on the top self. The fabrics are folded ruler style and "were"sorted by color and 30's, solids, children, flannels, backings etc. Now the they are for the most part still folded but mixed up. i am able to find what I am looking for but it just takes me longer. I find that I am not as much of a neat freak that I was :o.

I spend a lot of time re-arranging my fabric. My fabrics are on comic book boards and in bins - like all my NFL fabric is one bin and my MLB fabric is in another - when using them, I am doing a specialty quilt. All my Christmas fabrics are in a couple of bins because I have so much (at last count there was 250 and I have bought more). I did put the Halloween and Thanksgiving/Fall fabric together in one bin. But the florals and solids and tones get changed around from time to time because I change my mind. I had a lot of kids fabrics but I am sending them off because I have no more babies in the family and if I need to make another quilt for a small child/baby then I plan to use my embroidery machine for making pictures.

I am slowly settling into my new sewing studio we had built over the garage last spring. As I have been moving my sewing paraphernalia over to the new room I have been organizing my stash and purging some of the unwanted pieces of fabric. I have bins for strip quilts, crumbs, batiks and have neatly folded my yardage and FQs and arranged by color.

In reading a recent blog (maybe Lori Holt or Sherri from a Quilting Life) she suggested going through your stash about twice a year. I don’t have a large stash so I think I will apply this to my organizing philosophy.

do any of you refold your fabrics now and then so the creases can relax?

or - do you leave it " as is" until you use it?

the only times my fabric is " reorganized" is when i am looking for something.

i organize anything in my sewing room "once in a blue moon". Odd thing is, it's when I organize I really can't find things!

I organized my fabric a couple of months ago and gifted a lot of it that I knew I wasn't going to use. Now I can actually see what I have. Love it!!

Every January! I am not an orderly person but this is my one certain plan in life. Wish it would spill over into doctor's appointments, closet cleaning, window washing, refrigerator purging, etc!

I go through about once a year and donate to a church group. It is time to do that again!!!!

I'm with bearisgray. I only re-organize when I'm looking for something in particular if I can't remember where I put it last. I have a large stash of bits and pieces. Some yardage, but a lot was found either in thrift shops, GoodWill stores or given to me by friends who know I love quilting every day and can't wait to see how I use their pieces. :-)

I try to keep my sewing room clean as much as possible. After every project, I vacumn, put the fabrics I didn't use back, scraps in their perspective tote, etc. Then I can feel good about starting another project. Sometimes I have a couple projects going at one time like right now, so each project takes up one corner of my cutting table so I can keep them separate from each other. I have shelves for future projects and as I find a fabric I think might work with them I pull from my stash and put it in their pile on the shelf until I finally get around starting that project. I keep my flimsies on hangers with a paper pinned to them telling me whether I have the binding made, backing ready, what size the quilt is, whether I have the quilting patterns ready and what threads I want to use. I try to keep as organized as possible cause my memory is about 5 minutes long otherwise

As to my fabrics which is the main topic here, I have mine on comic book boards and/or bolt boards if over 5yds. I put up new shelves this past year so I have more room for the fabrics. I keep mine by color or if I have a large collection of a brand/type I keep them together. Right now I ran out of room again so they're starting to pile up where ever I can find a place to stack them. Drat it all............I seem to buy faster than I use them up.