Sorting It Out
Posted on February 27, 2023 by prairiemoonquilts in Stash TalesToday I’m gonna talk about sorting my stash. Pretty much how I sort all of it, in its various sizes and shapes.
Let’s start with the largest pieces, and work our way down, shall we?
My big yardage:
I don’t sort it by color. It’s all on a shelf, or in a tub, which I showed you in an earlier post. I do have plans to store it differently someday soon, to make it easier to look through when I want something, but since I’m working to whittle down how much of it there is, I don’t think I will change the way it’s sorted, just the way it’s stored (and I’ll keep you posted on what I come up with).
My “regular” stash:
This is anything that I don’t consider yardage, but is still big enough to not be considered “little scraps”. It’s mostly fat quarters, half yards, or some iteration thereof, and it’s in tubs stored underneath my cutting table. Really handy since it’s right where I use it. But still sort of a pain when I want the tub that’s on the bottom of the stack, so I’m probably gonna change this, too. Someday.
This is the part of my stash that I sort by color. I have 12 different categories:
Blue
Green
Red
Pink
Orange/Yellow
White/Cream
Black/Gray
Brown/Tan
Purple
Low-Volume
Multi-colored
Cowboy
Right now, I have two bins of blue, so I have them sorted by dark/traditional in one bin, and lighter/modern in the other bin.
I also currently have two bins of green, and during March, I intend to work on those to get them sorted like the blues. I want to eventually only have one bin for each color.
Since I don’t have much yellow, I lumped it in with the orange, which I do seem to have a lot of, because I love it!
I use a lot of low-volumes for backgrounds these days, especially in scrappy bright quilts, and when I buy fabric, it’s those I tend to stock up on, so I separated them out from the white/creams into their own tub. If you’re unsure about what is “low-volume”, you can read up on it HERE.
Here’s a good one I used my oranges and low-volumes in lately — my Mad Dash quilt:
I also have fabrics that have lots of colors in them, and I could never decide exactly which color they belong with, so I pulled those out and put them into their own bin. Some might have novelty fabrics that fit this sort of description, and while I don’t have much novelty fabric, it helped to sort these multi-colored ones into their own bin. You might call these “focal prints”, in the event you would use them that way.
And finally . . . I have a lot of cowboy fabric. I make lots of western-themed and cowboy quilts, so I pulled all that out and keep it separately, so that I don’t have to dig through every bin to find them when I’m ready to make a cowboy quilt.
You might need different categories for your own fabrics. My friend, Ceil, said she’s thinking about separating out her polka dots and her stripes, which is a good idea if you collect a lot of those. Some people sort out their florals. Some like to have all their novelty fabrics together, which works well for I Spy quilts.
Some quilters buy pieces of entire collections, and like to keep those together. Sometimes multiple lines from one designer all go together, so those could be grouped by designer, if there’s a favorite you love and always buy pieces of. Bonnie and Camille, Coriander Quilts, and Fig Tree Quilts all come to mind for that.
I do also have a small bin of Civil War reproductions that I’m not really calling a category, because I kept them separate in order to use them up, and I am currently working on two quilts using them. Once I’m done with those, I’ll see what I have left and either make another Civil War style quilt, or mainstream it all back into my normal categories.
I used to have my 1930s reproductions sorted separately, but once I used them down enough, I put the remainder into my regular stash.
And I have a collection of actual vintage fabrics that I keep separated. It’s in a couple big tubs of its own in the closet with the tubs of yardage.
So as you can tell, it continually evolves over time, based on how I use it and what I have, and sometimes even what the current trends are. Yours probably will evolve, too. Think about all the types of fabrics you have, and what sorting categories would work best for you.
Moving on to the smaller pieces now . . .
Large scraps:
These are pieces that I deem too big to cut up into my pre-cut sizes, but they’re small enough I don’t want them taking up space in my bins. I pull from these a lot when I’m making random one-off blocks, such as swap blocks for guild, scrappy BOM blocks (like my Blast from the Past blocks), etc.
I still have these sorted by color, because when I clean out a bigger bin, I usually pull some small pieces to add to these. Right now, I have them in bags, stored in a box under my cutting table, which is not at all convenient, but I’m waiting until I get all my larger bins gone through before I decide how I want to store them long term. I’m imagining some sort of matching bins, but I don’t yet know what size I’ll need or where I’ll even put them, so for now, I’m waiting. I’ll let you know later what I come up with.
And for today, I’m gonna stop there, and talk about anything smaller than that in the next post, cos I have a lot of small stuff, and I have a lot to say about it! So stay tuned . . .
I really need to start sorting my scraps!
I have my guest closet filled with “Jo” fabric…. as in Jo Morton and now she is no longer designing….. so in about 826 years I should have used up all her fabric.
I have similar style but mine are in boxes. Could be better but what I have. Still refining my system.
Be careful with boxes. Silverfish like them. Ask me how I know.
19 blocks February
Some past January, I started to work on my scrap storage, first by cutting them into useable sizes. Par for the course, life interrupted. It is a good time for a refresher. Speaking of interruptions, here we are at the end of February and I still have not finished that Long Time Gone Quilt! I still have some time to get a few more blocks completed for Februarys’ count though!
I am still smiling about having Cowboys a separate bin.
I basically use your method, Shelly. Fabric stored in see through plastic containers by color or theme…..Asian, kids novelty, Christmas, floral/lots of color, etc . Christmas small scraps is all I’ve kept together, And whites/neutrals are kept close as I usually use them for background.
I have my smaller than fat quarter scraps sorted into rolls by color family. This means I can get to them quickly as needed but don’t get overwhelmed by all the the other colors.
What I like best about your system is that you seem to always be using your fabrics not just cutting into precut sizes.
I have the hanging sweater holders that have 6 shelves on each hanger. I put a color per shelf. My blues and greens take up 3 shelves each (light, medium, dark). So I know I need to use up these. Also turquoise is a separate shelf.
I do keep florals separate. I am currently trying to reduce those by making a scrap quilt.
Thanks for honestly sharing your storage. Hubby built some shelves that I wrap yardage on comic book boards & fat qts all by color. The scraps I store in stacked storage boxes by strip size.
I really struggle with scraps given or purchased that I can’t store on my shelves which are FULL. I don’t know if cutting all scraps down into strips is a good idea either. I also don’t have strips sorted by color…..the predicament we find ourselves in!
I have my yardage,fat quarters and up sorted by color in a large storage shelves with doors. The children’s and 1800s are separate as is the last of my 1930s. I have been putting my small cuts 1,2,2.5 inch etc in a set of drawers by size but don’t use them enough that way. I think I need to separate them by color also and see if that works better for me.
My only big storage bins have big pieces. Japanese and some florals and potential backing pieces. I am down to only 3 of those. The rest of all the bins are smaller. And now many of those have leftovers, leftovers. I am trying to use up the leftovers but got get tired of that. Now what? More later.