My Free Fabulous Fabric Organization System

Hello Sewing Friends,
  I found a blog post intended for June but never published so here you go! Enjoy! I'm so excited to share this fabulousness with you!

Oh Fabric! How we love to pet and look at you. The problem is we can’t always find the exact piece we’re looking for, as we wade in the depths of the piles and totes or poke into the nooks and crannies we’ve stashed our preciousessss in. 

I don’t know about you but if I can’t see it, I forget it’s there and it languishes deep within the pile collecting who knows what as it lays on the floor. I wanted a better way to organize my fabric than folding and refolding on my shelves or scooting piles along the floor. I believe fabric is meant to be used as more than dust collectors and bug nests.

I read lots and lots of articles and spent hours on Pinterest looking for storage solutions but for everything I saw I had to buy something else so the piles stayed. Until I was reading Miss P’s blog one day and her method clicked! Here’s why I like it 

• Utilizes shelving you already have
• Uses cardboard you can get for free
• Able to see the fabric from all four sides of the board
• Makes every piece of fabric the “same” size
• Allows you to store more fabric in the same amount of space ;)
• Doesn’t cause an avalanche when you pull a piece of fabric out 

Two points I want to hammer home are by contrast are: this is superior to the bolt at the fabric store because the cardboard is thinner and the fabric is wrapped around ALL four sides so it is VISIBLE however you stack it! 
 While this is similar to using comic book boards this method uses free cardboard you cut for YOUR shelving, allowing you to maximize what YOU already have!

This was not something I did all at once, in fact I’ve been working on it for about a year. As boxes come available I cut them up which makes it very manageable and less overwhelming. It has been glorious! Everything stays neat and it is so easy to grab things in and out of the stack. It has also been frustrating because I seemed to keep pulling pieces I’d already rolled out to use. I guess that means the visibility thing is working! 

If I was really organized I’d have written the yardage and attached it to the piece but when do I ever pay attention to my yardage requirements? :)

Grandparents helping for the first big cut and sort.

Getting Dad in on the cardboard cutting.

This worked wonderfully for all but my smallest pieces of fabric which were overflowing the smalls tub. My mother couldn’t sleep one night and discover pinterest for herself. :) The next  day she offered two file tubs that were stored away unused. This works just like the file cabinet system only these fit on my existing shelving and didn’t cost me anything but cleaning time. It’s easy for me to pop the lids off and see all the pretties crammed in a row because you can bet I was cramming as much as I could in them. :)

I’ve finally found a storage solution that works with what I have; and once it is set up, requires no maintenance to keep up. It’s always ready to go and is easy to add new pieces to. (Bonus: it was super easy to pack up in the move, slotted them into garbage sacks and filled in the cracks.)

I never expect to use up all my fabric nor do I want to. I just want it to be in a manageable form and not take up all my space. This is what works for me.

Odds and ends I rolled and stuffed into a box.

How about you? What are your feelings about your stash of fabric? How do you organize it? Do you have a favorite method?

Helpful Links to Curating a Custom Wardrobe

Hello Sewing and Stashbusting Friends,
 Apparently my ideas for building a wardrobe with the curating challenges were so strong I sent them telepathically to bloggers who took my ideas and wrote fabulous blog posts or series on it.

Seriously though, I think it is just a level sewists get to at some point. We've made a few things we really love and fit well and we want to continue that. It's so hard to go back to store bought clothes when you realize you can make one that will fit and feel so much better, plus all the feel good conservationist, DIY vibes. Most of us want to live organized and uncluttered lives, or at least pinterest makes us think we do; and that spills into our closets.

Pinspiration

First up is a fabulous piece from Tasha of By Gum, By Golly. You all have probably already read it but I recently discovered her blog and I love the intuitive approach she takes to her closet. It's not dependent on trends, styles or others. She's beginning the wardrobe journey by focusing and analyzing her own clothes that have been tested by her life. She raises several good points that are well worth rereading.

Secondly is Colette's Wardrobe Architect. She totally stole my vibes, dug into them and made a wonderfully detailed, cohesive plan. Even if you don't jump into it fully, her posts are well worth the reading and thinking about, especially when she starts discussing the practical stuff.

I enjoyed the croquis posts one and two by Gloria & Me. It's a great way to experiment with different silhouettes without going to all the work of sewing it up and then finding out you don't like it on your body. Plus it's fun! Like playing paper dolls again but with the ability to make it real!

My actual closet stash last year...

So how does all this wardrobe planning help with our fabric stashes? Hopefully we'll walk away full of ideas to use up the stash, but it's also a preventative measure. Hopefully we can take what we've learned and be more discerning in our fabric and pattern choices. Do I wear silk? No? Then I probably shouldn't buy it. Do I have 5 dress patterns with that same silhouette already? Yes? Then I probably don't need another. Personally I was amazed at how many patterns I liked/had stashed that were almost identical, especially when it came to dresses and tops!

How about you? Have you found any similarities in the fabrics and patterns you buy?

Things I Learned Stashbusting Interview

Good Morning World!
 Today we have an interview from the lovely Cari Homemaker. I met her through the Stashbusting 2013 and she happily agreed to share what she's learned from a year of stash busting. I hope you enjoy it and maybe pick up a few tips! Psst, you can peek at her fabric stash here!

"In January 2013 I pledged to use 25 pieces of stashed fabric for projects before the end of the year. I met my pledge, just barely squeaking by in the last week of the year. That’s 25 pieces I might not have otherwise used, so that was a win, but on the other hand, my stash continued to grow throughout 2013, despite pieces getting used. I plan to continue on into 2014, after all, I did learn some stuff during my year of stash-busting.

1)  Goals are extremely helpful. Even though I did keep adding to the stash through the year, there were pieces that did get used that probably wouldn’t have if I hadn’t been actively working on getting them made up.

Pink Lace Leggings!

2)  I have some lovely things sitting around in my basement. They look even better when turned into something useful and brought out into the light.

Banana Anna

3)  Having stashed fabric isn’t always necessarily a bad thing. Maybe the fabric really would work for something that I didn’t need at the time I stashed it. Maybe the person that fabric is perfect for wasn’t even born when it went into the stash.

Hoodie and a total stash bust!

4)  If I give myself permission to buy more fabric, I will end up finding a reason to buy more. I didn’t impose a fabric-buying ban on myself during 2013, and the stash grew. I don’t know that the opposite will be true or whether denying myself permission to buy fabric will keep me from buying it, but given last year’s results, that’s what I’ll be trying.

5)  Stash-busting is much more fun when done in a group. Thanks Emily and Cindy for hosting us last year and for keeping it going this year."

Can you guess the literary character? See Here

Thanks for joining us for our second year Cari! We look forward to seeing what you come up with this year. 
How about you? Did anything change after a year of stash busting?