Organizing my Quilting Fabric: the Fat Quarters

If you know me at all, you know I like organization systems. But, being a maker, I mostly like to DIY my own system instead of buying products. (They seldom are exactly what you need or fit your space anyway.) If you want an example, click here to check out my silverware drawer.

I store my fabric in the paper boxes I could take home from my various office jobs. You can see on the right that some companies got smart and started decorating their boxes with designer patterns. (Seriously, actual designers whose name I recognized.) With the price about as low as it could get at every supplier, a box like this will get your paper chosen over the others. (I'm disappointed I never was able to snag the Star Wars series they had for a while!)

Is anyone else thinking of flour sacks in the '30s? I didn't think it was just me.

I lay the fabric flat in the boxes, folding it as little as possible. This means, every time I want to look for some fabric, I have to take all the fabric out and pick up and move each piece to see what else is there. And it takes some effort to keep it flat and neat.

Well. Recently a few things came together and rocked my (fabric) world.
1. Watching Marie Kondo in January and getting on board with storing things vertically (like file folders in a drawer).
2. a. Realizing a bunch of cardstock I had would work as well as the cards you can purchase to fold fabric around. (Lots of quilters use the pieces of cardboard they sell for comic books.)
2. b. Realizing that I had enough cardstock and would get more quickly enough that it wouldn't be forever until I would have my fabric done.
3. Realizing that fabric folded over cardboard didn't have to be stored on open shelves, which is the only way I had ever seen it.

For a while now I have cut down the front and back of boxes like this,

and saved them. I used a few to wrap my ribbon around for storage, but I really don't have a lot of ribbon. The rest were just sitting nicely on the shelf waiting for a good purpose. They didn't take up much space and if I ever decided they weren't needed, I could throw them all in the recycling bag, easy peasy.

I don't really know why I didn't think of this earlier or maybe it was the thought that I would never have enough to make it worth it, but recently I put two and two together and struck gold.

A fat quarter, folded in half

Before I explain, I'm going to go back to basics and talk about fat quarters (FQs). Quilters talk about fat quarters all the time. For years and years, you could only get fabric "by the yard". It was commonly available in 44" widths (although actual width is usually 42"), and you bought a half yard or full yard (or 5 yards if you really liked it).

Well, sometimes you only need a little fabric, but a 1/4 yard that is 9" wide isn't very useful. So someone thought of selling a "fat quarter", that is a 1/4 yard that is 18x22 instead of 9x44. It's not as good if you need long strips, but mostly you need other shapes that the fat quarters are better for. (FQs are generally pre-cut and packaged for purchase so they also allow a lot of sales without the sales help having to custom cut everything on demand.)

Ok. So. The paper boxes I use are 11" x 17". You can see that a 18x22 piece of fabric doesn't fit very well. Usually I would fold it in half (18x11) but then I still had to fold over an inch or two. It's awkward. Plus there was the going through the whole box thing. Plus the Marie Kondo thing.

Looking at the size of the box, I decided I could fit four rows side by side. Doing the math (17" / 4 = 4.25"), I decided I would cut them 4-1/8" to leave room for the fabric and 8.5" tall. So that is what I cut from my cardstock:

And lately Troy has really been into ice cream treats, so I cut a lot more from other boxes:

I put the cardstock on the folded fat quarter

and I can fold the fabric around it

so that none of the raw edges are visible

and everything is

neat

and tidy.

This makes my heart happy.

I would guess I have about half of my fat quarters done.

Look how great they look! (This makes my heart happy too.)

And now I not only will fit more in the same space, I can flip through them and see what I have.

I haven't worried too much about sorting them until I have them all done. (I had them roughly sorted by colour already so they're pretty organized anyway.)

Some people sort by type (batik, prints, novelty, etc.), but I do it strictly by colour. If anything is intended for a specific project, it's already pulled out and separated in its own project box.

Since quilters seem to be endlessly fascinated by other people's stash and how it's organized, I'll let you know that I have

• one box of fat quarters. It was getting pretty full but will have more room now. :)
• one box of "yardage" (larger pieces). Mostly this is fabric I bought because I liked it and it was probably on sale for a good price. The most I would have of one piece is 2-3 yards. I don't buy larger pieces for backs because I do so many pieced backs.
• one box of red yardage. Seriously, I have almost as much red fabric as all the rest of the colours. (I think I buy more than I use. I don't know why that is. Maybe because it's in a separate box!)
• and I have another half to three-quarter box with elephant fabric and a few other specialty fabrics. (Probably some chickens in case I need that for a project for my mom.)
• One of the boxes pictured at the beginning is full of fabric and supplies for my Lucy Boston Patchwork of the Crosses. I keep everything together until a quilt is done done. (Not that I wouldn't sneak in and use some for another project if I wanted it.) This will be a lot of fabric to incorporate back into my general stash when the time comes.
• Small scraps are kept in another box (in bags by colour). Before my Plaidish Quilt, they were threatening to overflow the box, but they fit now. Scraps cut into strips are in a different (smaller) box.

I haven't decided if I'll carry onto the yardage when the FQs are done. But it shouldn't be hard to fold it over a card twice as wide. I'd just have to cut the cardstock from larger boxes. I guess I have a new size to start collecting...