sorting your fabric

In preparation for Project: Sewing Room, I cleaned up my own sewing room and sorted out my fabric. I usually sort it out once a quarter or every six months. In the beginning, it is so nicely folded and organized. Do you know what I mean? When I start to dive into my sewing projects, sometimes (just sometimes), I get lazy and just start to throw things back in without folding and color coordinating. My fabric cabinet has doors for a reason! Out of sight, out of mind.

How to sort fabric? I have sorted by color, by size, by project, by collections. What is the best way? Honestly, I haven't found it out yet. I have read books about it and didn't really understand why one would sort out by color. I usually sew in collections.

Every time I sort, I seem to do it different to see what works better for me. The last time I sorted, I folded everything nice and neatly into about 3" x 8" fabric-fold stacks. This optimized my cabinet space to fit a lot more in and stayed relatively flat instead of towers of fabrics. This time, I folded my fabric into quarter bundles. I put all of my colorful fabric on the top shelf, where I will see it and use it more often. I also put the contrasting colors in front, because I like a lot of contrast. The neutral blacks, white, brown, grays got put on the middle shelf. I hardly use these anymore.

I keep the larger pieces separated - pieces 1/2 meter and more go into their own groups. You can see these at the bottom. I will usually use these for backing fabrics.

Honestly, it doesn't look like I have that much fabric looking at this picture! But I also sorted out fabrics for special projects I am working on. My Hasenbach, North Pole, Kitschy, and Mod/Mod Block Lotto all got new project totes. I bought these at our local home improvement store - Bau V-Markt; they fit great into my cutting table shelves. I also have a few smaller collections of fabric stored in plastic bags in the other cabinet. I store my scraps, other projects, batting and notions inside that one.

Now, I really don't think I have a lot of fabric, but who ever really has enough? How do you organize your fabric and why? I would love to hear from you!

project: sewing room

Hello my very dear and loyal readers! Today I would like to share with you my sewing room and a few ideas I have about it. If you are coming to my site via IkeaHackers to take a look at the customized sewing room cutting table, you will be very excited about this new project.

I first uploaded "how to make the cutting table" almost one year ago and had big ideas for the rest of my sewing room. But as things usually go, the day-to-day gets in the way. Now that I am working in the room, I see room for improvement and desperately need to make some changes.

My project is to improve and vitalize my sewing room with (new) ideas that are very functional for the 20-ten patchworker! I will bring out a post (once a month) giving tips, ideas, or little projects that will "WOW" your sewing room. Now, I know we all have our own style. Some like dark wood, some black, some cherry, some beech (Buche) wood. I like it "modern rustic." For me, that means the look of old wood combined with white. I love color, believe me I do! But in my sewing room, I want the room to be my canvas. My sewing room will stay within this theme, but you can tailor the projects to your style and your space. I will even talk a little bit about ergonomics in the sewing room.

I am very fortunate and thankful to have a medium sized room with lots of light. It is used not only by me for sewing, but additionally as the "ironing room" where I get the laundry back into order as well as the place where the kids do their homework. So, this being said, it has to accommodate these things as well.

The essentials are already set up - cutting table, sewing table, storage. I have a wonderful cutting table (100x140cm) made by my Schatzi. I am using an older Ikea table (80x120cm) with adjustable legs which gives me the perfect height I need to sew. The table is turned perpendicular to the wall, because I want to look around my room. Otherwise, I would feel like I were in a jail cell looking at a cement wall. It also allows me to quilt larger quilts and let them hang off the table. Last year, I also bought double cabinets for fabric storage and a tall book shelf with drawers for unfinished projects and additional storage.

My room looks a little messy right now, but I wanted to be candid about it. No one is perfect and nothing is ever 100% clean and organized all of the time. My room is in a working condition, not a museum.

First up on the To-Do-List is to get my sewing room back on track and do some spring cleaning...sorting out projects, fabrics, and some general cleaning. I found a good article about it here.

I hope you will join me once a month for a post on project: sewing room! Please feel free to leave a comment about ideas that have helped you in your sewing room/space.