Today according to my Martha Stewart Calendar alerts is “Organize Your Fabric Scraps” day! Do you have leftover fabric from projects and can’t part with them? How do you store them? Most of the time mine is just thrown into a drawer or tossed into my craft cabinet. There’s got to be a better way, right? I’ve rounded some really neat ideas to give me and you some inspiration. But first, you really need to go through them and purge:
- Take out all of your leftover fabric and sort according to:
- Is this fabric still in style?
- Will I really use this again?
- Can I donate it (if it’s a large enough piece)?
- Is there enough left to do anything with?
- Does it need to hit the trash can?
- How long have I hung on to it (if it’s longer than a couple of years, you may want to let it go)?
Once you’ve gone through your fabrics and sorted them out, then you can work on storage. I know it’s hard to get rid of fabric! You never know when you might need it! My grandmother worked in a sewing plant all of her life and sewed for herself and her family. She kept almost every scrap of fabric, but at least she had a room. I loved digging through it and finding all kinds of treasures!
My mom on the other hand, who had also worked in a sewing plant, but only for a while, kept very little fabric. Don’t get me wrong, in her sewing cabinet, there are two shelves of fabric! I’m kinda in between the two of them.
Due to a disaster in my craft cabinet the other week, I was forced to do this very thing and go through my fabrics. I have a tendency not to trust measurements and I overbuy, just in case I make a mistake and I usually have some leftover. I’ve had a good bit of sewing projects over the years and now I’ve accumulated a good bit. But, now I’m down to one stack! I feel so much lighter and it’s easier to organize. So take some time and schedule an “Organize Leftover Fabrics” day!
Wanting more inspiration? Check out these bloggers and how they organize their fabric stashes.
Great blog! I need to practice more organization skills 😉
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I’ve been accumulating stashes from grandmothers & great aunts & sweet little old ladies around our area… So I’m finally HAVING to go through & re-organize. I hate throwing away, but I just don’t have room. We’re trying to use some for small projects. It’s amazing how it can get out of hand! So many things I want to make, so little time to do it, and SO little space to stash my ideas!
I totally agree! I want to keep every little scrap, too. Everytime I start to get it under control and it’s all nice and neat, I start a new project or inherit more fabric and I have to start all over again. Right now I have a ton of black fabric waiting for me to make my daughter’s curtains and red for the living room. My mind is swirling with projects for the leftovers. Hopefully it won’t take me years to get around to them! lol Good luck re-organizing!