Most of my fabric is stored in rather random piles in a cedar chest, so I can use these fabric storage ideas as much as anyone else.
What Are Your Goals?
When it comes to organizing and deciding how to store fabric, it’s good to know what your goals are before you get started.
Do you want to be able to see everything easily so that you know what you have? Or would you rather have it stored away from light and dust?
Are you hoping to declutter and move your fabric to a smaller storage space?
Do you have a big project in mind you think you have fabric for but you just aren’t sure?
Knowing what you need to get out of your fabric organization can help you know which fabric storage ideas will work for you. For example if you need to see things to know they exist, open shelves will be a better option for you that storing fabric in a filing cabinet or cedar chest.
Decluttering Your Fabric Stash
Any time you are contemplating new fabric storage ideas, or even if you’re just trying to organize what you have better in the space you already use, it’s a great time for decluttering.
I cover this more in my ebook on decluttering craft supplies, but the main things to consider are if you like the fabric, if you have plans for it, and if you intend to use it sometime in the near future.
This isn’t the time to think about how much things cost or to feel the scarcity caused by no longer having a place to buy fabric in your town. Decluttering should be done with your best sewing life in mind. What do you really want to make? How do you want your space to make you feel? Eliminate the things that don’t do that, and release them with a grateful heart to the person who will love them and make something with them.
Fabric Storage Ideas
Once you’ve decided what you want to keep, it’s time to actually figure out your fabric storage. I feel like the cedar chest will probably always be the space I want to keep fabric in (unless I decide to swap it with my yarn storage and put it on shelves) so I need to figure out a way to keep a big empty space organized.
Polka Dot Chair has a great post about how to organize fabric. She generally sorts by color but also has holiday fabric, fat quarters and pre-cuts stored differently. She uses open shelving (pictured here) to keep fabric visible and create air flow in a humid environment. The FAQs in this post may also be helpful if you’re designing a fabric storage solution from scratch.
If you want to keep it super simple, have a place for them and don’t need to worry about moisture, simple plastic bins sorted by color, season or size is an easy and inexpensive way to go. (See some from Set Carre.)
My Fabric Obsession used a set of plastic drawers to hold fabric folded and arranged like files, and you can also literally use file hangers to organize your fabric in a filing cabinet like Sew Many Ways did.
If you have a closet with a rod in your craft space, or a place you can install a rod, hanging fabric using pants hangers, like Ish and Chi did, is another fun option.
If you’re looking specifically for fat quarter storage ideas, check out this post from Patchwork Posse. Of course many of the ideas are the same, such as shelves, drawers and bins, but it’s nice to see what you can do with smaller cuts of fabric, too.
What about scraps? I’ve been working in scraps a lot lately (see also: fabric twine) so I love this arrangement from I See Stars Quilting. She has a six-drawer unit and has fabric scraps organized by color for easy access.
If you have a rolling cart, it’s also a great place to store little bits of fabric, especially if you also make custom fabric baskets to fit it like Podunk Pretties did. So cute!
How to Fold Fabric
Fabric can be stored rolled or folded, but I feel like most of the fabric storage ideas I see show it folded. A super popular way to make your fabrics consistent in how they are folded is using comic book boards. I saw this over and over when I was looking for different ideas, but this post from The Cottage Mama is a good one that shows how other people have done it.
The boards are a great option because they are acid free and you can fold fabric around them and just leave the board in there, which provides some stability if you are storing fabric on a shelf book style rather than in stacks.
BRB I’m Crafting used a DIY cardboard template to fold her fabric to fit in a cube style shelving unit. Making your own template is a great idea if you’re working with a weird space or want to make sure you’re storing fabric as efficiently as you can.
Do you have any great fabric storage ideas that have worked for you? I’d love to hear about them since this is a project I hope to tackle this summer!
