Fabric, Oh So Much Fabric!

But I'm not complaining.

For at least 5 years, Hubby paid for a Fabric of the Month subscription for me.  I chose the "variety" option and would receive five or six 9 x 13 cuts of various hand-dyed fabbies.  Silly me, all those years, I kept each monthly shipment together in it's baggie and added it to my treasure chest box of fabric.

Now, keep in mind that every time I wanted to start a project, I had to go through each little baggie until I found just the right piece for whatever I was stitching.  The first couple of years this wasn't such a big deal, but as my box got filled, it wasn't so fun to go through all those fabric pieces any more.

Finally, during my craft room organization, I've decided to tackle the box full of luscious fabbies.  I figure I've been putting it off for as long as I have because I wasn't sure how I was going to sort and store them.  Also on my mind was how I was going to know what each piece was. 

My first step was to unbag all those monthly shipments.  As I was unbagging them, I sorted them by fabric type -- Lugana, Jobelin, Jazzlyn, Jubilee, Cashel Linen, Belfast Linen, etc.  Originally, I was thinking about keeping each fabric type together, but that would mean I would still have to go through each type of fabric if i was looking for a certain color.

This dilemma stumped me and I lost all motivation and energy to continue.  So I shut the light off and left my messy room.  The great thing about my room is that I can just go downstairs and forget about it.  Actually, I never really forget about it :-)

Well, somewhere in the back of my mind, this dilemma was churning away.  For me, selecting a piece of fabric for any particular project starts by deciding which color I want to use.  So, I've finally decided that the fabric pieces should be sorted by color regardless of what type of fabric it is.

Step two was to sort each piece by color.  I decided that I am going to take each piece out of it's individual packaging and open the piece to lay flat.  Some of the pieces have tags stapled on the edge and I decided that's how I would attach the package label to each piece.

For now, I'm putting each color into it's own 2 gallon ziploc bag and laying those flat in the box.  At some point I may come up with a different storage space for the fabbies, but until then, this method will work.

Ready for a pic?

Reds, Oranges, Yellows, Greens, Blues,
Browns, Purples, Grays

Can you guess which color I have the most of?  I thought it would be the blues, but it's actually greens with the purples coming in second and blues are third.

I've run out of steam for today and I've only made it through the reds, oranges and purples.  I'll get back to my messy room another day!

I'm thankful that I have my very

own rainbow in my craft room!

Have a great week!