Congratulations! You’ve made it through half of the Craft Room Overhaul with Go-Go Kim and me. That’s right – we’ve been doing this for four weeks now. Wow. This has been absolutely amazing, overwhelming, nerve wracking, eye opening, and most of all NECESSARY. I’m going to admit right now that I haven’t quite been following along exactly with the task each week but I have been working my butt off each week. The other night about about 11:30pm I looked around and realized that this was actually going to get done. Yes – it’s still insane and I can barely walk through certain parts of it but I can definitely do this.
Today is the second week of dealing with all that fabric we have. Yes – ALL THAT! I’m still working on scraps too but it’s time to start thinking about our yardage and what to do with all that. There are MANY ways folks store their fabric but today I’m going to share with you how I do it.
Before I found the method I’m about to show you this is how I stored my fabric – in stacks. While this worked out ok there were some definite issues. One thing you can’t see in this picture is the stacks are two deep. The fabric behind the fabric often was lost or forgotten about. Also – this is a picture directly after a clean up happened. It didn’t take long for the stacks to become not so nice and pretty. If I grabbed a fabric from the bottom of the pile it would often fall over. This method was far from perfect and it definitely wasn’t going to work for me.
In 2013 I started a project to use Mini Bolts (they used to be named Polar Notion Boards) to organize my fabric.
Mini Bolts come in two different sizes – Original and Fat Quarter. The Original Mini Bolts are the perfect size for wrapping 1/2 yard cuts and up to 15 yards. The Fat Quarter Bolts are perfect for 1/4 to 1/2 yard cuts.
I use the Fat Quarter mini bolts for all my fat quarters. They are the perfect size and keep everything so nice and tidy. I have some of the Original Mini Bolts but I just couldn’t justify buying as many as I needed for my entire fabric collection. I supplement my Original Mini Bolts with comic book boards (#ad). When I have more than a yard of a particular fabric I make sure to put it on an Original Mini Bolt – it’s just sturdier and works better. The comic book boards work just fine for 1/2 yard to 1 yard cuts of fabric.
Last week when I was supposed to be working on sorting my scrap fabric I was distracted and just couldn’t stop myself from resorting my fat quarter collection.
You can see the “before” state of my fat quarter collection in this photo. It really wasn’t that bad. I just had to fit in some new fat quarters and do a little cleaning up. But of course, I couldn’t do just that. I asked my husband to build me a little shelving unit to fit to the right of the two current shelving units. I knew it would be perfect to display the solid rainbow fabrics. I also decided to really go through the fabrics I needed to pull them all off the shelf and go through them each before I put them back on. In doing this, I was able to weed out the fabrics I was no longer in love with. Yes – I love my fabrics. When I buy fabrics, I rarely know what I’m going to do with them. I buy them because they “talk” to me and I know they’re going to work for a project someday. So, as I was putting the fabrics back on the shelf and I decided which fabrics I was ready to move on from.
By weeding out some fabrics I don’t love anymore and with the adorable new mini shelf for my solids – I have an entire shelf empty and ready for more fabric if I need it! I love having room to grow!
Check out my video on how to wrap fabric onto a Mini Bolt HERE.
And the fun tiktok I made of the fat quarter overhaul HERE.
Next up – my yardage of fabric! Again – it’s not too messy (just in front of it) but I think it’s time for a good re-sort. I’m going to pull each fabric off the shelf and give it a complete refresh – after I get those scraps taken care of!
I couldn’t afford to just buy all the boards I needed right away so this has been a process over the last 9 years. At this point in my fabric career if I run out of Mini Bolts it means I have to use my fabric before I buy anymore! It’s been a good way to monitor how much fabric I actually have.
If you’re not inspired by how I store my fabric, check out this article HERE that shows you 11 other ways for fabric storage.
Don’t forget to follow along with us on social media so you can see what we’re up to on our Craft Room Overhaul journey’s!
Go-Go Kim: Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok
PersimonDreams: Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok
Okay – it’s your turn! Show us your yardage! Start by linking up your “before” pictures and then link up your “after” pictures! I want to see how you store your fabric!
#ad
Okay, so here’s a question, I have noticed that on the fold lines of my fabric, there is fading, even though my fabric is in a closet. Do you have that problem too? Is there a solution? I mostly find it on fabric I have had for awhile (read years)
Yes – that does happen after many years of it being stored this way. If you’re really concerned about it you can re-wrap the fabric every so often so it moves which side is facing out. But for me, if there is a discoloration or a flaw in the fabric I either don’t use that portion in my quilt (cut around it) or I include it since it’s “part of the story”.