When you first buy those long yards of fabric, they can be used for almost anything. But as you cut into your supply, you find yourself laden down with scrap after scrap of fabric pieces in various shapes, sizes and colors.
How can you make any sense of it? Well, after years of trying to sort through, I have found the following ways to organize. Please note that each category listed is followed with suggestion for whom the style of organizing will work best for.
Organizing your fabric by each pending project – This category is useful if you only have enough of that fabric for for one specific project. It’s a good idea to store the fabric with the pattern, or a written description of what you intend to sew with it. Put both in a ziplock back.
You can also list the project on an index card, and file it.
By color—This method works well for freelance sewers, often pressed for a specific color to integrate into a garment. During the design process, freelance fabric artisans frequently reach for specific colored fabric swatches like painters reach for oil paints. When organizing your remnants by color, it’s a good idea to further catagorize them them into knit fabrics, and woven fabrics, these can be difficult to combine. (knits and wovens often "pull apart" when sewn together).
By type of fabric (it's weave)—Many crafters (especially quilters) find it helpful to separate their remnants into similar fiber types. That’s because quilts require that many scraps be “pieced” together, and should really be of a similar weight and weave to avoid stress on the numerous seams. If you like to make Calico quilts, or kaleidescope designs, you will find that sorting your fabrics by type is more of a priority than separating them by color (although some experienced quilters, who have an “eye” for which colors work well together, might also group these into color groups such as neutrals, pastels, or jewel tones.)
By size—This requires a little more practice—as you develop your skills, you will instinctively know which sizes of fabric work best for which projects. For example, when sewing placemats, you can easily use a dozen or so smaller pieces up efficiently, rather than breaking into a long fresh bolt of fabric.
When categorizing by size, I separate my fabric swatches into the following categories—Close to one yard long, 1-3 feet long, six inches to one foot, and patch sized pieces, about six inches. Anything smaller than these gets dumped in a rag bag for crafts.
By shape—this can get tricky. I use this when sorting deconstructed garments.
Triangles (from skirt panels)
Long strips (from hems and plackets)
Pockets---I use these for novelty accents on blankets, teen purses, etc.
Naturally, different scrap shapes occur as I cut different pattern pieces out of fabric.
As your skill develops, you will learn which categories work best for you.
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