Having an organised and tidy sewing space has many benefits. It’s much easier to find things in an organised environment, your fabrics will stay in nice condition and it’ll be quicker to get actually sewing.
We have blogged about keeping a tidy desk before – read that blog post here – but we didn’t touch on fabric storage itself.
If you begin a sewing session by hunting around your space for the fabric you need, hauling your machine out of a cupboard and scouring around for the matching ribbing, you will feel stressed and have less time for sewing.
Sort By Colour
You can choose your store your fabric by colour – this is particularly helpful for solids and ribbing. You can easily see at a glance what colours you have and what colours you need for your latest project.
If you have lots of solid colours you can use a cube storage unit such as this Kallax. The simple grids make organisation easy.
If you don’t have enough solids to fill an entire storage unit, you can still stack by colour. Not only will you be able to find colours easier but you will also get that perfect rainbow stack aesthetic.
Sort By Theme
Organising by theme is a great way to store your fabric. If you know you want to make something from an animal fabric, seeing all your animal fabrics together makes them easier to find and can inspire you.
You can even sub categorise and arrange all of your specific types of animals together. For instance all the crocodiles, all the lions, all the monkeys etc.
This can also help with managing your themes and fabric buying. You may see a beautiful horse fabric but realise you have 10 different horse fabrics. Or you may see a monkey fabric and realise you don’t have any in your collection.
Having your fabrics on display means you’re less likely to forget what you have and using heavy duty shelving is a great way of doing that.
Folding The Right Way
Using boxes is a really handy way of storing fabric but it can also be a challenge in itself. It’s tempting to fold the fabric on top of each other but this can be cumbersome in finding things.
Folding as we have in the photo means you can easily see all the designs without emptying out and rummaging through the whole box.
You can use boxes for storing in any way. The key to using boxes effectively is to fold in a way that means you can see easily what fabrics are in there.
As well as organising by colour and type, you may also like to organise by type of fabric or length. Keeping smaller pieces in a separate place to larger pieces makes it easier to find the right amount of fabric for your project.
You could always store them together but stack them in the order of amount. Larger pieces on the bottom, smaller pieces on top like a pyramid.
Organising your fabric has many benefits including saving time, sparking inspiration and saves your fabric from being damaged and crumpled!
Whichever way you to choose to store your fabric is absolutely fine, just be sure to be consistent in the method you choose.
By organising your fabric you have saved time when starting a project. Having your sewing machine out and in each reach will also save time when sewing.
A well organised sewing room with a machine you can just switch on and start using means your sewing time will be maximised and it will be a much more pleasant experience.
Have we missed your favourite organisation tip?
Do share your sewing spaces with us in our Facebook group.
Happy tidying!
