{31 Days To organize the "hidden" areas of your home} Day 26~ Fabric, Fat Quarters, and Thread- Oh my!

If you are "hooked" on sewing of any kind, I am sure you have an abundance of fabric we quilters like to call "our stash". Keeping it under control is a difficult task, to say the least. With two quilters in the house (my mom & I both share this love) our stash is multiplied by two. Our dream would be to have a sewing/craft room separate from any other room in the house but that is not the case. We are blessed to have a very large dining room that is doubling as our sewing room for the time being. We have had to get very clever about hiding our stash. Armoires to the rescue. 

  









We measured the inside of the armoire and were able to fit three sets of plastic drawers side by side. We moved the two shelves to the highest position and were able to use them for smaller plastic bins with notions. In each drawer we folded the fabric into small squares and lined them up on end. Two drawers hold all of our cones of thread. Everything is at our fingertips and easy to find. This makes finding fabric for that next quilting project a breeze. 

This armoire has two doors underneath it with shelves where we store larger pieces of fabric. We have also collected many quilting magazines for patterns etc. We picked up some magazine holders at the local office supply store to keep them organized. When we decided to organize the fabric this way, we just went out and purchased the drawer units. I would normally suggest waiting until they go on sale but we wanted to get this job completed in a timely manner so choose not                                                                    to wait.                                                   

We have tried to put similar colors in the same drawer to make it easy to find what we are looking for but sometimes they get moved around. I just saw an idea on pinterest that I am thinking about adding to this system and that is to take a small swatch of each fabric that is in the drawer and glue it to a small rectangle piece of card stock. Then punch a hole in the top of the card and string them on a ring that can be hung or stored in each drawer. The pinner said that it made finding what was in each drawer easier but I think it would be a great thing to be able to take several of the swatches to the fabric store with you when you need to purchase fabrics to match what you already have for a new project.