My Organized Stash!

It has finally warmed up in East Texas but the past couple of weeks have been the coldest I think we have seen in years.  Since I would love to have the daytime temperatures in at least the 80's year round our highs not even above freezing just made me want to stay in cuddle with a quilt.  However, I decided to also put my time to good use.

A friend of mine forwarded a blog that was an answer to a big quilting dilemma I had been having.  What do I do with all of my fabric and quilting stuff!  My fabric was stored in boxes and although it was fairly neat, I couldn't see it and it was in several places.  In the blog, the writer explained how she stored her fabric, right down to how she folded it.  This was just the boost I needed to get my own organization project done.  Here is the inspiration blog if you would like to see it as well:  Can you be too organized? Not if you are me!

Here is the before...

Some of my "Stash" under my cutting table

More of my "Stuff" stacked around my cutting table

I bought a couple of different sizes of clear plastic storage containers that would fit perfectly in the space under my cutting table.  I then took out ALL of my fabric and began deciding how to organize it.  I settled on basically by color with the exception of special categories such as Christmas and novelty fabrics.

Beginning to sort everything!

I set up my ironing board and iron and began pressing and folding the fabric as the writer of my inspiration blog did hers.  I found that her method worked perfectly with the size of containers I was using.  I never realized how much fabric I had and had forgotten about some of it.  I felt like a kid on Christmas morning each time I dug into a new box of fabric.

Folded and sorted by color in their new happy home!

 

Filling up fast!!!

It took me about two weeks working on this project off and on to get everything just the way I wanted it but it has been worth every minute!  Every single piece of my fabric is now in one of these labeled bins at my cutting table.  No more some here, some in the closet, some everywhere else, etc.!  I LOVE IT!!!

Drum Roll Please...

Everything is in its place and labeled!

What a difference.

 I guess the "Proof is in the pudding" as they say.  I needed to work on a special project this weekend for Mitchell's play.  It took me about 2 minutes to find the things I needed and then get to work.  Before, I don't know how long it would have taken me to find what I needed and I would not have enjoyed working on the project because I would have been frustrated by the time I got started.  Now I am really looking forward to finishing up old projects and starting on new ones!

Happy Quilting!
Sheila