Storage for quilt books
 

I have a lot of books pertaining to quilting. I love them all. However, the shelf where I have them stored in a converted closest is way too high. I can not lower the shelf due to other shelves below for fabric. I would like to install other shelves for my books. My sewing room is very small so I need suggestions.

What about hanging magazine and book racks on the door of your closet like they have in drs offices?

I know this is going to sound time consuming and believe me, it is! But it helped me tremendously! In each quilt book I found there were only a small handful of quilts that I actually liked. I cut out only those, put each one in clear plastic three ring binder style page protectors. The magazines and books were then donated to the library, etc. I have scaled down all those books to only two 3" wide 3-ring binders that take up minimal space on my shelving.

I copied patterns I wanted to keep on to external hard drive. You could also keep them on flash drives or save into folder, organize and copy to cd/dvd. Then sell/donate books and magazines. Some patterns I copied on to paper and have in file cabinet.

I'm using my filing cabinet, bottom drawer for my quilt books and patterns I've printed out from the PC. I put them into plastic page sleeves to keep the pages from curling. It keeps them dust free and out of my way. Gives me more shelf space for......................more fabrics........:-)

I use a wooden wall cube (14" on all sides) which is bolted to the wall for the books that I refer to most often.

I have some shelves on the side of the closet... If that makes sense

I like this idea. I have an old file cabinet I can't lock. So I put magazines in notebooks and then store them in the cabinet. If you don't have room in the closet, put them in the garage or basement.

I know what you mean about the books! I finally broke down and went through each one quickly, asking myself if I was still the quilter I was when I bought the book 30 years ago? and if not, or I had mastered the info in the book or the examples in the book were repeated in a thousand other places, I put the book in the donation bag. I haven't looked back and my library is now very timely and great fun to go through. At some point one has to let go of something.
Otherwise, you might take all the old books you aren't looking at but want to keep and put them in small bookcases and hide them behind a couch or something in a corner and pull out the furniture when you want to get to one of them. Keep the current books handy on a shelf in your quilting room. Meanwhile, have you utilized the wall space in your quilting room? Look up! is there a place for a board and bracket bookshelf...go for it!

I bought some shelves that are wire and screwed them into my wall above my cutting table. I have my books standing on those shelves. I bought the individual shelves at (ugh) Walmart for very little money. They are coated and colored white, which looks pretty in my yellow sewing room. I have three shelves that are each about 2' long. Then I have a dresser as tall as me and one side is drawers and the other is shelves and I put the rest of my books and magazines in there. It has a door on the shelf side. I bought it at Costco for $79. Very reasonable, I think anyway.

I just purchased a bookcase. Now it is full and piles of books on the floor again.unfortunately fabricholic plus bookaholic means loads of both.

I was lucky that I was a bit of a bookworm before I took up quilting and had had an eight foot wide bookcase built. I didn't take too long to fill it . I've bought another that is four foot square and filled that but that and taking some books to the charity shop I've made room for more reading books but am running out of room again. I also have books out in my sewing room. I don't buy books or magazines any more because there is so much on the internet. Now I have about a dozen loose leaf folders with plastic pockets. They are all stuffed full.
Saved on a memory stick I have over 700 Quilt patterns and that doesn't include what is still saved on my computer. MBS, Jelly Roll quilts Bargello quilts plus several folders with free quilt patterns . Not saying there aren't any repeats but there wouldn't be too many.

Two of the folders have embroidery designs & colour charts. Another has knitting patterns. I just hope the good Lord has plans for me to remain here for another 20 - 30 years and I might have a chance of using some of these as well as some of the 100s of yards of fabric I have.