Storing Fat Quarters and Scraps

I went to put away some fabrics that I had finished with, and realised that my fabric storage system really wasn't working for me, everything was sorted by colour and just cramed into my wire baskets.

Exhibit A

I spent a long time with my coffee looking at photos of quilter's stashes and reading how other people store their fabrics; the problem for me is that a lot of the systems which looked great were designed for large pieces i.e. yardage or required cutting fabric into useable sized squares or strips.

The problem with this is that 99.9% of my stash consists of pieces smaller than a FQ. I knew I need to do something, but the question was what?

I have 3 baskets of pink/red fabrics ranging in size from a FQ down to 2" square, I knew that I wanted to keep my fabrics in one piece, so all those wonderful ideas where you cut your scraps down into strips or squares and then sort by size really wouldn't work for me. I like to cut fabric for a project as I go along and I don't know what size I will want 😁

The thing that all these great systems had in common was that fabric looked tidy because it was folded into a uniform size. I knew I didn't want to invest in any other storage, so I measured my baskets and worked out that I could fit 3 rows of  6" wide fabric in my 7" deep drawers.  I made myself a template from a piece of mount board and started folding.

I started with a FQ wrong side up with the shorter/selvedge edge running vertically

and placed my template in the bottom right corner

Then you just use the template as a guide to fold over the fabric

Keep folding until you end up with a strip 6" wide, an imperial FQ will fold nicely into 3

I flipped my template out and turned the strip over so all the raw edges were in front of me

Then using the template again I rolled the strip along the long 7" edge

Keep rolling until you run out of fabric, again an imperial FQ will roll nicely into 3

It also works really well for 1/2 yd or yard cuts as well as odd sized pieces, as long as they are at least 6" wide and so that you can see them in the stack at least 14" long.

I decided to pull out all my scraps that are less than 6" x 14" and store them separately in these plastic boxes that I repurposed.

I have a long way to go, but a little at a time I will tame the mess! I think I have a system that will work for me.

Summer Slump & Autumn Goals

I have been in a bit of a slump sewing wise these last few weeks. We have just finished having lots of building work done and have also had a succession of family visitors to stay, unfortunately at the same time! (not planned!) More visitors arrive next week, leaving little time for sewing. We had a lovely week away in the sun last week and I came back revitalised :) I really wanted to start stitching again but couldn't decide what to work on - I even briefly contemplated starting a new project! I then gave myself a stern talking to and decided to start by tidying up my small sewing room, which had become a bit of a dumping ground...

Once everything was neatly tidied away, I decided to sort out the projects I want to focus on over the next few months. I have put everything I need for each project into one of my baskets - I can't start something new until I have an empty basket!

I want to work on My Green Tea & Sweet Beans quilt - you can see my progress to date HERE

The Downton Garden quilt - progress photos HERE

Birds of a Feather - sadly neglected since the beginning of 2013 - progress to date HERE

I also want to finish stitching Tipsy Thistle and make it into a project bag

Hopefully ready for embroidery class which starts again mid-September. I will work on my cottage embroidery then too.

This should be enough to keep me out of trouble for a while :)

Storing Embroidery Floss

The problem...

Actually this is only a very small part of it! The rest of my stranded cottons are wound onto bobbins, and I have a growing collection of silk threads and some speciality threads. I am fed up with rummaging through lots of different boxes to find what I need, drastic action was called for! I spent a lot of time on the internet looking at different blogs and websites to see how everyone else sorts their threads. Some of the systems looked really good, but work out quite expensive when you have several skeins to store. During the great sewing room tidy last year, someone suggested I store my silk threads in floss away bags. I really like these bags, I can store full and partial skeins together and they are neat and tidy.

I decided to order some more bags and transfer all my stranded cottons over too. It took some time to organise as I took all the threads off that were on bobbins, I really dislike the way the thread kinks when on the bobbins so have stopped using them.
I also decided that I wanted everything sorted in colour groups and then by number, it makes it much easier for me to chose threads for a project if I have all the greens etc in one place. I have shade cards for DMC and AVAS so I can find a particular thread easily if I need to.  The next problem was where to put all these bags! I didn't want to spend a lot of money and I have no room for more storage in my small room. I decided to repurpose my WIP drawers. I have drastically reduced the number of projects I have on the go at any one time so these drawers were sadly underused.

I measured inside and was thrilled to find that they were the perfect depth for the bags to stand up and that I could fit three rows in each drawer. I cut some card mount board that I had lying around to make dividers.

I now have one unit for stranded cottons, with a drawer each for reds/pinks; greens; blue/purple; yellow/orange/neutrals.

The other side has a drawer for AVAS silks (with room for growth!) one drawer for over dyed and other silks, a drawer for perle cotton and a drawer for everything else - linen, cotton a border etc

I now have some empty storage boxes, so I will sort out my lace and ribbons etc into them. I have a small collection of goldwork threads which can tarnish, so I will use glassine envelopes for them, I really like these envelope, they are used by stamp collectors and are acid free and you can write on them!
I still have a bit of tidying to do as I seem to have made quite a mess getting this far :) I am happy to finally have a proper solution for all my fibres. The best bit is most of it was free and I can move things around easily as my needs change.

How do you store your threads?

The Great Sewing Room Clear Up

I have finally finished sorting and tidying my very small sewing room. This was how it looked a week ago...

And this afternoon...

The Shelves of Doom

The great sewing room tidy up continues with the dreaded bookcase. My room is too small to stand back and take a full photo and I still have to sort out all the paper & patterns...

But I have finished organising all my threads etc and now the top shelves look a lot better...

I did have all my DMC thread on bobbins sorted by number, but I only ever use DMC for adding embroidery details to quilt projects etc, so filing by colour seemed to make much more sense to me.

Duplicate full skeins are in zip lock bags in this pretty box, and I have a colour thread chart if I need to find a particular number quickly.

Thanks to everyone who suggested storing silk threads in floss-away bags, they are too expensive to leave in a tangled heap in a box! These are by brand name and colour number on rings.

 AVAS have their own special box, with room for growth!

Hand dyed cottons are loosely arranged by colour family in this box

Beads, trim, braids etc are in the three 'Marken' boxes

The beautiful sampler boxes were purchased over a period of several years at craft shows when I lived in Holland from the Kunst & Vliegwerk stand, they are still available HERE. The duck egg boxes were bought in the Laura Ashley sale. My mother gave me the little statue years ago as it reminded her of me and my two boys...