SOCIAL MEDIA

Friday, February 4, 2011

SSF Post # 13 : Fabric Stash Storage by Marilyn

Good morning, so like I said, I'm sitting here in my parents house and bringing to you our guest today : I stumbled upon this lady when I was assigned her as my partner for Mug Rug Swap... I made a quilt for her and sent it away... In about 3-5 days I received my MuG RUGS (yup, she made me 2!) and it was FROM HER!


We hit off right from the first convo, a few peeps into her sewing room and I knew I HAD TO bring her here for you guys...


So here's Marilyn "Spiced Coffee!!!" 


P.S. She'll be featured on my DQS quilt as well! :)


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Hi...I'm Marilyn, also known as Spiced Coffee over on Flickr



I'm here to talk about one of my favorite subjects -- fabric storage! Over the years, I've tried so many options, but they always ended up in a muddle. Let's face it, the key to successful fabric storage is having enough space to work with. If you don't have enough space, then you have to go on the dreaded fabric diet, which is no fun! Once I had a dedicated sewing room, I finally had enough space to let my fabric addiction run wild! I settled on first dividing by fabric type, then by color. Most of my fabrics are quilting cottons, so they get most of the space and attention. I've found that the more I use a particular type of fabric, the more important it is to keep it organized. It is too easy to completely forget about a piece of fabric if I can't see it. I find it also helps to pull out each stack of fabrics every few month, neaten them up and refresh my memory about what I have. 
Stash


You can tell I was in the middle of organizing by the few empty spaces, which were quickly filled. Here's the danger of leaving an open space!
Helping




The primary use of my cotton fabrics during the past few years has been in the many mini quilts I've made for swaps on Flickr.
"Terrie Takes Flight"



Mermaid & Friends

Quilt Dreams

"Rainbow Garden"

Three Little Birds


I do use fabrics other than cotton, but they don't take up nearly as much space. Each category of non-cotton fabric gets its own basket. I love using batiks, Thai silks and vintage Japanese kimono fabrics for small projects, and I know exactly which basket to go to.

Batiks


Hawaiian Applique


Thai Silk




New Silk Top


Vintage Japanese Kimono Fabrics




"Beachcombing"

A Valentine for Lily Lemon



I sometimes buy a group of fabrics that I want to use together in a project, so I don't dare add those to my stash, where I might forget they're being saved for that special project. Those fabrics stay together, either in this bin for smaller projects,


 or in drawers reserved for larger projects. Here are some collections, patiently waiting to be made into quilts. 

These Kaffe Fassetts will soon be a quilt. 


And aren't these Liberty of London fabrics delicious? I can't wait to get started with them.


OK...most of my fabrics are nicely organized, but I get a poor grade when it comes to saving those little scraps I just can't throw away!


I would love to hear YOUR ideas on how to organize them!! 

Good luck on building your own fabric stash! The only danger is that sometimes they look so beautiful, you just don't want to use them, or want to immediately replace any that are used! Just last week, my granddaughter asked me "Grammy, do you think you can really use all of those fabrics you have?" Good question! I hadn't intended to create a fabric museum, so I'd better get busy! 







7 comments :

  1. What a talented woman! I love your work! I haven't tamed my stash tooo well, but it is improving. I want to seperate my scraps by type too...crumbs, triangles, strings and the rest....:)

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  2. WOW! Amazingly lovely quilts. Thank you both for this lovely post!
    I don't have that much of a stash or the space but hope things would be better after sometime :)

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  3. La-la-la-la-LOVE the kitkat in the stash!!! LOL! I feel like all I ever say in these posts is "I just love to look at fabric organized by color ..." BUT I DO!!! I would love to paw around in your closet (neatly!) and just look and look and look. :)

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  4. I love how our kitties manage to find all the nooks and crannies to hide.
    Thanks for sharing your lovely space. and system.
    Jo

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  5. Love that you have kitteh helper as well!!!! Your fabric stash is beyond drool worthy, as are your mini quilts!!!!

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  6. I love your miniature quilts, they are actually works of art!! Beautiful!

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  7. Love that closet. I thought I had a lot of fabric. I would love to organize mine like that. It just looks so pretty.

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Thank you for your comments... I try to reply to all of them personally, but sometimes life is just too fast to do that... But I love hearing from you...