Organizing the sewing room

Sewing room mess

My sewing room is a mess.  To be honest it's a very small area with lots of sewing supplies shoved in there and very little to no storage space, so stuff gets piled wherever I can find room.  I've been wanting to organize it for a long time, but every effort I made just seemed to make things worse.

For some time, I've been perusing Pinterest; longing for a bigger sewing room, but that won't happen for a few more years, so I needed to look into craft room organization.  I ran across this great pin about storing fabrics on mini bolts. 

I started by cutting down some cardboard boxes, but decided it would be kind of pain to have to hunt down cardboard every time I bought more fabric. There are items out there made just for this purpose but they can be kind of pricy. After some research I found these acid free boards in packs of 100 for under $20 on Amazon. I bought the magazine size for cuts larger than 1 yard and the 6.75" x 10.5" for cuts under a yard. The smaller ones (I haven't received yet) I'll cut in half for minibolts and they'll be perfect for fat quarters.

Tagged and serged.  This fabric is ready to use

I also needed a way to identify the fabric content, since I buy fabric and might not use it for months or even years; it's imposable to remember if it was cotton, a cotton/poly blend or something else entirely and the percentages of blends. I solved this problem with those DIY business cards you can buy at any office supply store. Each bolt has an attached card that has the fiber content, yardage, and fabric width written on it. And since I can't remember if I pre-washed a fabric I have a system for that too. Before pre-washing, I serge the raw edges to keep them from raveling in the washing machine. So now when I look at my fabric stash, if I see the raw edges are serged, I know it's been washed and ready to use.

I'm still stuck in a tiny space, but once I get my fabrics organized it shouldn't feel so small. Next I need to work on finding a place to store full bolts. Hubby's working on some sort of system to hang them from the ceiling.

Fabric cabinet organized with lots of room to add more, and I still have fabric in bins that need to be organized