Sew Organized Part 3: Fabric and Scraps

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**This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you) when purchases are made through links found in this post.


Welcome to part 3 of our Sew Organized series.  Today we're talking all about fabric - ideas for storing and organizing yardage, pre-cuts, fat quarters, scraps...all of it.  

First of all I want to just say that there's no one best way to organize your fabric.  We all create differently and we're all inspired by different things.  

If you already have a system in place that works for you, great!  I'd love to hear any tips and ideas you have to share.  

If you don't have a system yet, take a minute to think about how you choose fabrics when starting a quilt.  Do you first reach for a particular designer?  Or do you look for certain colors first?  Or maybe you like to work in specific styles, like Civil War era?

To be honest, I use a combination of all of these!  Here's where I store most of my fabric stash. 

As you can see, I use a combination of shelves and bins to organize and store everything.  

Storing by Color

When I start a project I often begin with colors in mind.  So it's most helpful to me to have my yardage stored by color.  

I try to keep myself limited to one stack of each color but as you can see in the photo below my aqua and green stacks have overflowed and are taking over the purple and brown spots.  Time to thin those out a little!

I also prefer to sort my scraps by color but you could also sort them by size.  My scraps are stored in the bins on the very top shelf and everything is just stuffed in there.  When I need to dig through for a scrap project it's kinda fun to just dump the whole bin out and make a colorful mess.  Clean up is easy because I just stuff everything back in, click on the lid and put it back on the shelf.  

Here's another way to store fabrics by color:

photo from Lori Holt, Bee in My Bonnet

This is a view of Lori Holt's storage - cute baskets with everything sorted by color.  


Storing by Size

There are a few sizes which are handy to keep separate from the others.  Anything about fat quarter size or bigger is folded on the shelf.  Everything else is sorted by size or stuffed into the scrap bins.

Orphan jelly roll strips and leftover binding strips (2.5" wide) get put together in this bin.  This is sure handy if I ever want to make a scrappy binding!  

I corral charm packs in this bin - which makes them easy to find when I'm ready to make a charm pack friendly quilt. In this bin I also have a stack of hand cut low volume charm squares.  The bin keeps them from fraying and I can easily grab a few to add in to projects!  I bought my bin at Walmart, and they no longer stock these.  But here are some similar ones on Amazon.

And 2.5" squares go into this bin.  These are so great for small projects and scrap projects like these!  Sometimes if I don't have an immediate use for a mini charm pack, I'll open it up and put all of the mini charms in here with these squares. 

I don't have a ton of jelly rolls, fat quarter bundles or layer cakes.  A few are kept in the closet, and my favorites are on a shelf and do double duty as cheerful decor!

Since pre-cuts like this are already conveniently bundled up there's not many storage options besides keeping them on a shelf or in a box or bin somewhere...

...or displayed in a lovely cabinet like this one!  I love it with the cake stands on top and the bundles of fabric all arranged inside.

Photo from Jessie Lathroum / Inside the Paper Box

Storing by Designer or Style

If you have a favorite designer it's nice to be able to find everything from that designer without doing a lot of digging through everything else.  I have a friend who loves everything from Fig Tree & Co. and keeps all of her Fig Tree prints together on the shelf.  I have two bins set aside for Bonnie & Camille fabrics. Another friend of mine is a huge fan of Lori Holt and keeps Lori's fabrics separate from the rest of her stash.  

 You could also sort by style - all reproduction prints together, all low volume prints together, all Civil War together, etc.  Most of my stash is very similar, but I do keep my 1920-30s reproduction prints together in one bin - and I've been using them a lot lately and have found it handy to have them all together like this.  

I also keep I-spy fabrics (mostly juvenile prints) in a box together and all Christmas prints together.  When I want to make a Christmas quilt I start in that bin and then add in some basics and blender prints from my stash.  


Need ideas on WHERE to store all of that fabric?  
(click on the photo for more information)

How about in drawers:

Photo from My Fabric Obsession

Stand alone shelves like these from Amazon:

Photo from Tallgrass Prairie Studio

Or in a filing cabinet?

Photo from The Thinking Closet

This hanging storage was meant for shoes - but works great for fabric:

Photo from Bryn Alexandra

Plastic bins like these fit great underneath a bed or under a desk:

Photo from Flamingo Toes

And I love this idea - an over the door shoe organizer that's now used for scrap storage.  The clear pockets make it easy to see just what's in there: 

Photo from Pioneer Valley Girl

And another fun idea for scraps - mason jars in rainbow order!

Photo from Canoe Ridge Creations

There's really so so so much out there for fabric storage and organization ideas and I know I've just scratched the surface!  If you have any tips and ideas you'd like to share, comment below.

Want to see even more ideas?  Check out my Sewing Room Organization pinterest board - and be sure to follow me because I'll keep adding great ideas to the board as I find them!


Next week will be our final week and we'll be talking about organizing projects.

Did you miss part 1 and part 2?  Find them here:
Sew Organized Part 1: Tips for Storing Quilting Tools and Rulers
Sew Organized Part 2:  Tips for Storing Patterns, Magazines and Books

Sew Organized Part 2: Tips for Storing Patterns, Magazines, and Books

** This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you) when purchases are made through links found in this post.


Next up on our Sew Organized series are tips for organizing and storing quilt patterns, magazines, and books.  We all have them, and we all need them.  And they can get out of control very quickly!

First, let's tackle the patterns.  I shared this image last week when we talked about organizing tools and rulers, which are kept in the red magazine holders.  In the white magazine holders on the top shelf I keep quilt patterns.  

These white cardboard holders work great for storing quilt patterns - both the printed ones I buy at quilt shops, and also PDF patterns and tutorials from internet.  You can find similar magazine holders here on Amazon.

Before I go on, I want to mention something.  You know those PDF patterns that you buy and download online - either from a designer's shop or from Etsy?  I recommend that you ALWAYS save a digital copy of every PDF on a hard drive somewhere.  

I have a folder on my desktop set aside just for PDF quilt patterns.  As soon as I buy the PDF I save it to the folder and then I print it. It's handy to be able to easily find old PDFs and reprint them later if I need to.  

On the bottom shelf of that same cabinet I have this green three ring binder.  In here I keep patterns that I need to keep referring back to over and over - like the Patchwork Quilt Along last year.  I knew I would need to refer to these pages repeatedly throughout the year so I kept them handy in this binder in the section labeled "current."  In here I keep the pattern for any other project I'm currently working on.  That way I always know where to find it, and it prevents them from getting ripped or accidentally being used for kids' math homework.  Please tell me that happens to other people too :).

In the notebook there is also a section for notes.  I'm constantly grabbing loose sheets of paper to make notes about re-sizing a pattern, how much binding to buy, or sketching up a diagram for piecing a quilt back like in the image below.  To keep these loose papers from taking over my quilting space I keep them stored in here.  

I also have a section for quilt ideas and sketches of blocks to try.  Sometimes I'll think up a cool idea but don't have time to draft it on the computer yet.  So I make a sketch and a few notes and then file it here in this notebook.  

Another great solution for storing quilt patterns are these Mini Binders.  You can find plain black or white ones like these, or there are also some fun colorful ones with designs.  Find them here on Amazon, and Target carries them as well as most big box stores and office supply stores like Staples.  The binders measure about 7.5" x 9.25".

The sheet protectors are from Target and are the perfect size to fit quilt patterns - including those PDF ones you print from home.  You can also get dividers to sort your patterns into categories by designer, or size, or whatever....

I love that you can easily view both the front and back of each pattern to see what the fabric requirements are without having to remove it!

Because they're mini binders they'll fit almost anywhere - right now mine are on my smaller shelves above the ironing board.  

One more pattern storage idea are these boxes - they're originally designed for comic book collectors but they also happen to be sized just right for quilt patterns!  You can find them here - and there's a few sizes to choose from.  

The Container Store has similar boxes - slightly smaller but they'd still work and they come in so many pretty colors!  

Alright - now how about those books and magazines we love?  

This is the other side of my cutting table.  I have one shelf just for books - and I try to limit myself to just that one shelf. 

Right now they're pretty crammed in there but I do go through them every year or so and pull out any older book that I haven't used or don't think I'll use again.  And that's ok!  Styles change, your skill level will change and your interests will change.  There's always great new books being written so it's okay to pass on your older books to make room for new favorites.  From the ones I pull out, I'll offer them to to fellow quilters and take them to a local guild to see if there's anyone interested in them.  

I also have a shelf and a half for magazines.  I need to go through them and pull out older ones so I'm just using ONE shelf again.  Right now my magazine storage isn't that creative or unique - a magazine holder on a shelf works just fine, and there are enough magazines on the other shelf to keep them all snug and standing upright.  

In the next few weeks my plan is to go through  the older magazines I have, tear out the patterns I want to keep and put them in page protectors in a regular sized three ring binder like this one.  I really think that if they're stored this way then I'm more likely to make the quilts I want to - because I won't have to flip through dozens of pages to find that ONE pattern I wanted.  

photo from makelifelovely.com

In this blog post by Make Life Lovely she shares how she saves favorite ideas from magazines and files them in binders.  I love this idea and I could even organize the patterns by type (ie jelly roll patterns, FQ patterns) or by size (baby quilts, throw quilts) or even by type (applique, holiday, traditional, modern, etc).  

Another idea you could use for either magazines or books is a set of small shelves like these. I love that they put these shelves in this spot behind the door! 

photo from kidsroomideas.net

This would probably be unusable space which then becomes a great storage opportunity with the addition of a few shelves.  The shelves are from IKEA and you can find them here on Amazon.  

How about even more ideas? 

photo from heyletsmakestuff.com

This is actually a shoe organizer from IKEA.  But I love the idea of using it to store notes, sketches, patterns, or magazines.  And when not in use the pockets fold in and it looks nice and tidy.  I can't take credit for this one - check out the original blog post from Hey Let's Make Stuff.  

photo from peekaboopages.com

Peek-a-boo Pages did a whole post about storing PDF patterns and she has some great ideas.  Check it out here.  I love that hanging file folder idea in the photo above!


Want even more organizing ideas?  Check out my Sewing Room Organization pinterest board here.  And be sure to follow, because I'll keep adding great ideas to the board as I find them!  


I'd love to hear if you have any tips to share!  How do you store your patterns, books and magazines?  

Sew Organized Part 1: Tips for Storing Quilting Tools and Rulers

Welcome to my Sew Organized series!  You've found the first of a four-part series of articles where I share my favorite tips, tricks, and tools for keeping your sewing space organized.  Click the links below to learn more!

Sew Organized Part 1:  Tips for Storing Quilting Tools and Rulers

Sew Organized Part 2:  Tips for Storing Patterns, Magazines and Books

Sew Organized Part 3:  Storing and Organizing Fabric and Scraps

Sew Organized Part 4:  Storing and Organizing Quilting Projects and WIPs

Hi everyone!  I've been spending a few days this month going through my sewing space and organizing everything - getting it ready for new projects and a new year of creating.  I'm not always great about cleaning up the last mess before I make a new one so it's really nice to have a clean fresh start this year.  

Now that everything is put back in it's place, I thought I'd share with you some of my favorite tips and tricks for keeping a sewing space organized.  This will be a month-long blog series, and every Wednesday I'll share more tips!

This week we'll focus on sewing tools and quilting rulers.

Now, it's no secret that quilters have a LOT of tools.  The problem I find is that some tools are used rarely and can be put away until needed, but there are quite a few tools that I use frequently and I like to have them handy.  So what to do with them?  IKEA to the rescue.  

This organizer set was designed to be used in the kitchen, but it does a great job with my favorite tools!  I have it mounted on the wall next to my machine.

One bin is all scissors and hole punches.  The middle one is for pens, pencils, fabric markers, and sharpies.  The flat tray is perfect for holding my most-used presser feet, seam gauge and the screw driver that is required to change the presser feet on my machine.  

And full disclosure here, I usually have a lip balm, hair tie, and some type of chocolate on that tray as well.  You know...all the essentials.  The organizer is called Grundtal and you can find it here from IKEA.

Another tool organizer I love is this little blue bin.  I keep it sitting next to my machine and it holds the other tools that I use a lot.  When I am sewing away from home this is the bin that travels with me.  It has extra needles, all of the other presser feet, tweezers and a paint brush for cleaning my machine, and some glue sticks for when I'm paper piecing.  

Next up are all of those quilting rulers in every shape and size!  They're so handy to have, but once you buy them you also have to store them, right?  

My two favorite and most-used rulers stay on my cutting table in one of these handy Ruler Pals.  The Ruler Pal can hold up to three rulers and they come in all of these fun colors!  Having them on the table like this makes them quick to grab and easy to put away.  

The majority of my other rulers I hang on a bar at the end of my cutting table.  They're out of the way, and I can see just what I'm looking for.  These black metal hanging bars are no longer sold from IKEA but the Grundtal hooks (the silver hooks in the photo below) work perfectly with the rulers so I would recommend using the Grundtal bar with the hooks for your quilting rulers.  

There are also a few rulers that are odd shapes, don't have hang holes, or just aren't used as frequently.  I used to store those rulers in a drawer...

but then I decided I'd rather have that drawer space for projects.  So now I keep my other rulers in these two cardboard magazine organizers.  One is for curved & circle rulers, and the other is for everything else (including any instructions that may come with the rulers - those are handy to keep!)

And these two magazine holders sit on a shelf below the cutting table.  Still easy to get to, and I know right where to find them - and the rulers are protected so they won't get bent or broken.  You can find magazine holders at most office supply stores as well as Target, IKEA, & The Container Store. 

Hanging on the same bar as the rulers are my rotary cutters, and a clip board - (I'm going to talk about that clipboard in another organizing post.)  On the same bar is also a little bucket...

I found that for larger trimmings and trash it was fine to dump them right into the big waste basket at the end of the table.  But for smaller bits and trimmings I loved having this little bucket handy to just toss them into.  

When the bucket is full, I dump it into the waste basket - but usually it takes me a month or more to fill it.  I actually learned this trick from Jodi Nelson (Pleasant Home) and at first I thought it was silly - until I tried it!  And now I love it and use it every day.  

So there you go!  My favorite tips for keeping all those quilting tools and rulers organized.   Do you have a great way to store your favorite tools and rulers?  I'd love to hear your ideas!

Next Wednesday I'll share part 2 of my Sew Organized: Tips for Quilters series: patterns, papers, magazines, & books....all of the papers that we quilters love to hang on to.  

Want to come back and read more later?  Pin one of these handy images so you can find these articles later!  And if you want to see more organizing ideas, check out my Sewing Room Organization board.

**This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you) when purchases are made through links found in this post.

Second Look Sunday: Evening Blooms Quilt Tutorial

Happy Sunday everyone!  This year I'm starting a new feature on my blog called Second Look Sunday.  I've been blogging here for ten years now - TEN!  That's crazy!  And with so many of you being new readers, I wanted to highlight and share with you some quilts and tutorials you might have missed!  So the second Sunday of each month will be Second Look Sunday.  This month's second look pattern is called Evening Blooms.  

I designed this quilt in 2013 to go with a new line from Carina Gardner & Riley Blake.  The line was had some great florals and geometric prints but it was all in black and white.  

This was a fun challenge for me - I wanted to showcase the constrast between the prints, and focus on using the value of the fabrics (the lightness and darkness) to create a secondary design in the blocks.  

What do you think?  Can you see it?

The entire quilt is made from half square triangles, but in this tutorial I show you a quick and easy way to make a ton of HSTs.  

You can find the tutorial here, and if you'd rather have a handy printable PDF version of the pattern you can find it here.

If you make an Evening Blooms quilt I'd love to see it!  Tag me on Instagram (@abrightcorner) and use #eveningblooms and #abrightcorner.  Or tag me on Facebook too!

Patchwork Quilt Along Block Twelve

Alright - here it is!  The final block in our Patchwork Quilt Along journey.  I can't believe it's already month 12. 

All year we've been sewing along with the Fat Quarter Shop as they released a new block each month.  Can I just tell you how excited I am to get to the next step and be able to start piecing these blocks together?   Here's my basket of all 72 blocks!

This month's block is called Mother's Own and you can find the free block pattern here (scroll down to where the December block is listed).  

Compared to some of the previous months' blocks, this one was a snap!  And a delight to piece. 

You can still find all of the block patterns here on the Fat Quarter Shop's blog. 

And if you're sewing along with us, and struggling working with such small blocks, check out my Tips for Piecing Small Quilt Blocks post.

The list of bloggers who are sewing along is below, and you can also join the Facebook group and see what quilters around the world are creating!  

Amanda from Jedi Craft Girl (@jedicraftgirl)

Amy of Diary of a Quilter (@diaryofaquilter)

Andy of A Bright Corner (@abrightcorner)

*Bonnie of Cotton Way (@bonniecottonway)

*Camille of Thimble Blossoms (@thimbleblossoms)

Debbie of Happy Little Cottage (@happylittlecottage1)

Greg of Grey Dogwood Studio (@greydogwoodstudio)

Heidi of Buttons and Butterflies (@buttonsandbutterflies)

Melissa of Happy Quilting (@happyquiltingmc)

Melissa of Oh How Sweet (@ohhowsweet)

Pat Sloan of PatSloan.com (@quilterpatsloan)

Renee of Sewn with Grace (@sewnwithgrace)

Sedef of Down Grapevine Lane (@downgrapevinelane)

Sherri of A Quilting Life (@aquiltinglife)

Sondra of Out of the Blue Quilts (@sondradavison)

Taunja of Carried Away Quilting (@taunjalynn)

Tina of Emily Ann's Kloset (@emilyannskloset)

Carrie Nelson/Miss Rosie of Moda Cutting Table

Shine Bright Star Quilt

Today I'm excited to share with you a quilt I made for a sweet friend of mine using a new line of fabric called Shine Bright.  It's designed by Simple Simon and Co. for Riley Blake Designs, and today is my stop on the Shine Bright blog tour! 

I love the sentiment that went into this fabric line.  Liz and Elizabeth (a.k.a. Simple Simon and Co.) wanted to honor the strong and beautiful women in their lives and encourage them to "shine bright." 

I had a particular friend in mind when I created this quilt.  This friend definitely shines bright- although I don't think she realizes it.  In the past several years she has struggled with anxiety, depression, and an eating disorder among other things.  Despite her own troubles, she takes the time to stop by and visit when she's in my neighborhood, remembers my birthday, and always has a smile to share.  But the one thing I'm most impressed with, is her courage.  Recently she recognized she needed help with her anxiety and depression and had the courage to ask for that help.  I'm proud of her for that - I'm not always very good at recognizing when I need help, and then asking for it.  

For most of the stars I did some fussy cutting of one of the main prints and used it as the center of the stars.  I love that it makes it look like I pieced little nine patches - it's like cheating!  

My favorite print of this line is a word search type print and I used that one to fill an entire star.  In this word search print are the words "you are" in gold, and then hidden in the print are words that describe how the two designers feel about their daughters - words like "smart," "strong," and "brave."

I wanted to emphasize those words as a reminder to my friend, so I did some simple hand embroidery to outline a few of those words as one would when doing a word search.  I used a single strand of DMC Pearl Cotton and an embroidery backstitch and was able to get it done while watching a little tv one night.   

I love how it looks in the finished quilt!  To give the quilt added texture, I used the black and white lattice print from the line for every other block.   

I love using flannel on my quilt backs this time of year, and I found this lovely pink Riley Blake flannel at my local quilt shop.  It makes the quilt perfectly snuggly.  The binding I used is a black and white Swiss Dot print from Riley Blake Designs, and the quilting is a design from Urban Elementz called Diagonal Plaid.  

The finished quilt is 60" x 72" - a nice throw size.  And for those that want to make your own Shine Bright star quilt, I'll be back in a few days with a tutorial.

You can see more of the Shine Bright fabrics here, and they're now available in stores.  

By the way, Simple Simon is giving away a FQ bundle of Shine Bright over on their blog here.  Check it out!