Fabric and Organization
In preparation for the Stashbusting Challenge, as well as keeping with my sewing goals for January 2013, I have made an effort to organize my fabric stash. I sorted all my stash (except scraps) into piles by fabric type, then decided which ones I could actually see myself making something out of, or not. For example, it makes my eyes hurt just to look at that black and white striped chiffon. Unless I decide to make an optical illusion top, it's being donated.
After laying out all my fabrics, I kept out the ones that would be "in season" for the next few months of sewing. I put these out where I could see them, as a constant reminder of my potential projects, and an encouragement to not buy more fabric!
On to fabric organization:
Ever since I started sewing, I have never really had a method to keep track of what fabrics I had purchased, how much yardage there was, or even the kind of fabric, which was easy to forget at the time, but could cause a lot of extra work and worry later.
For example, knowing when to pre-wash fabric - I actually just pre-washed fabric for the first time ever! I know, I know, but no way was I spending handfuls of quarters on a load of laundry for fabric that may or may not shrink. Now that I have my own washer and dryer (YAY!) I feel better about it. I went with a batch of mostly cotton fabrics, as I hear they can shrink a lot. I'm happy to report that nothing terrible happened!
In the past, I had attempted cataloging all my fabrics on little note-cards, but these got scattered all over the place, and most of them just had the swatch - I never remembered to write down the details when I purchased the fabric. But that is all about to change...
In this adorable little sketch-book / journal from my excellent mom (gifted from etsy), I am going to keep track of all of the fabrics I purchase and use, especially for clothing. Each page will have a swatch of the fabric, as well as:
Description
Yardage
Price
Used for...
Care
Notes
For example:
I have already started working on the fabrics I have recently purchased, (first time I remembered to snap pics of the bolt!) and I hope to have all of them in here soon!
So how about you? How do you keep track of all your fabrics?
After laying out all my fabrics, I kept out the ones that would be "in season" for the next few months of sewing. I put these out where I could see them, as a constant reminder of my potential projects, and an encouragement to not buy more fabric!
On to fabric organization:
Ever since I started sewing, I have never really had a method to keep track of what fabrics I had purchased, how much yardage there was, or even the kind of fabric, which was easy to forget at the time, but could cause a lot of extra work and worry later.
For example, knowing when to pre-wash fabric - I actually just pre-washed fabric for the first time ever! I know, I know, but no way was I spending handfuls of quarters on a load of laundry for fabric that may or may not shrink. Now that I have my own washer and dryer (YAY!) I feel better about it. I went with a batch of mostly cotton fabrics, as I hear they can shrink a lot. I'm happy to report that nothing terrible happened!
In the past, I had attempted cataloging all my fabrics on little note-cards, but these got scattered all over the place, and most of them just had the swatch - I never remembered to write down the details when I purchased the fabric. But that is all about to change...
In this adorable little sketch-book / journal from my excellent mom (gifted from etsy), I am going to keep track of all of the fabrics I purchase and use, especially for clothing. Each page will have a swatch of the fabric, as well as:
Description
Yardage
Price
Used for...
Care
Notes
For example:
I have already started working on the fabrics I have recently purchased, (first time I remembered to snap pics of the bolt!) and I hope to have all of them in here soon!
So how about you? How do you keep track of all your fabrics?
5 Comments
I loooove stash photos! :)
ReplyDeleteMy Sally, you are hard at work! This is such a smart idea, I was checking out the blog for this challenge and it seems pretty cool. Lois does have some wonderful taste, the book is so fetching!
ReplyDeleteI have plans to do this with index cards. I'm terrible at identifying fabrics so I thought this would be handy to have around. I really like those little sketch books better then index cards. Might have to check them out!
ReplyDeleteThat's a good idea. Mine are all just in a rubbermaid tub! THe next fabric I buy, I'll try to be more organized!
ReplyDeleteI use evernote for fabrics, I made offline notebook, so I don't have any limits. I added photo of fabric, price, may be ideas for what I bougth it%))
ReplyDelete