that is what I do too

I base my sorting on the way one of my favorite quilt stores is organized. I can't handle sorting only by color, too unorganized for me. I sort by theme (civil war and 18-19th century repros), 30's, Asians, neutrals, backgrounds suitable for redwork or other embroidery, etc. Within the catagory I may sort by fabric line or color. I ruler fold and the folded fabric goes in wire closetmaid drawers on frames. I do have two drawers that are blues and whites and white and blues, they are mainly repros, also. Likewise a drawer that's reds and red and white. Batiks are folded (but not ruler folded) and stacked in the closet on wire shelves. There is never going to be enough room because stuff grows to fill the space available. This works but I would like to replace the drawer units with Ikea Besta cabinets with doors. It would give me more storage, reduce the footprint on the floor and use more vertical space. I even went so far as to figure the number of cubic inches I would gain. It will have to wait until we re carpet the house in a year or two. I'm Not willing to breakdown and move things out of the sewing room twice, even thougth it's only 10 x 11.5 feet.

if you find yourself with a lot of those types, sort it into it's own catagory

I've been folding stash most of the day, trying to rearrange. My prior sorting was along size. Fat quarters together, half yards together, etc. Not very organized to say the least. Earlier today I started resorting into color. But I found this rather hard, as I am quite the Magpie for bright colors and bold prints.

From reading this thread I think by designer/company might work best for the majority. Most would be considered modern and a good chunk is Alison Glass, Frances Newcombe, Momo, Carolyn Friedlander, Lotta Jansdotter, Cotton + Steel, Michael Miller house designer, etc. That and solids/blenders by color would probably take care of 75-80%.

Or just make a big jumble called "Misc" and consider it all sorted. : )

Some of my fabric is sorted by quality or anticipated projects in plastic bags or baskets. My stash covers so many years that I try to not mix the older stuff with newer fabric. Also, if I paid a lot and I like it a lot...it stays separate no matter what color it is, my system is atrocious and could not recommend it. I do keep whites, creams etc together tho. That is important to me. But mainly, I try to keep complementary fabrics together or I might wind up using that perfect matching color on a new project. Also, very important...I keep my wip quilt tops and the extra fabric together until the binding is sewn on.

My dots are all together organized by background color so you white with pink dots would go with dots next to other dots with white background.

this is my way too.........if its a multicolor kind of print, I put them all together in the same background color....regardless of their multi colors, I find that if all the background color is the same (like all tan backgrounds, etc) then those will look fine together...........