Smart (and Pretty) Ways to Organize Quilting Fabric

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As my fabric stash grows, I find myself getting more and more frustrated with how its stored. I’ve tried several different methods for organizing fabric, but none of them seem to work perfectly. Keeping fabric in boxes works great for stashing it away, but I always forget what I have when I can’t look at it. Even when it’s in a clear tote box, you can’t really see all of it unless you dig through the box.

Here are my favorite solutions for storing yardage, precuts, and scraps of fabric.

Storing Fabric Yardage on a Shelf

In an effort to make my stash more visible, I switched to folding it and stacking it on a shelf. However, this was messy and still made it difficult to pull out a specific piece I wanted to use. So I decided to hop on the trend of making “mini bolts” to store my fabric vertically. I love how this looks and it makes my fabric so much easier to use. It’s kind of like a fabric library and I can easily pull out whichever piece I want to use.

How to Make a Mini Bolt of Fabric

A mini bolt is basically when you wrap a small piece of fabric around cardboard so it can be stored upright. You can use regular cardboard, such as a piece you cut out from a shipping box. However, a better option is to pick up some comic book boards. These are cut to a nice, uniform size, but they’re also made from acid-free paper that won’t discolor your fabric. I use the BWC brand 7.5 x 10.5″ boards and I’m really happy with them.

Depending on the thickness of your cardboard, you can use one or two pieces. I typically use two pieces for a large piece of fabric but can get away with one piece for a smaller piece.

You’ll want to start by folding your fabric so it’s roughly the same height as the cardboard. If you have a larger piece, fold it in half lengthwise a few times to make it more manageable. If the folds of the fabric don’t want to lay nicely, you might want to iron it before wrapping.

Next, you’ll fold one edge of the fabric along the cardboard. If one edge of the fabric is cut into an irregular shape, I like starting with this edge so it gets wrapped in the middle.

Next, fold the cardboard over itself so the fabric wraps around it. To make the bolts look nice, pull the fabric as you’re doing this to keep it wrapped tautly. Try to smooth out creases so they lay smoothly.

The last step is to pin the fabric in place so it doesn’t unwrap. If you don’t want to use pins, some people also like using plastic alligator clips instead. I personally don’t like these because my cats like to play with them and I worry about them trying to eat the clips when they inevitably fall off.

If you plan on storing your fabric for a long time, you will want to be careful about the pins you use. If your stash gets exposed to humidity, low-quality pins might get rusty and stain your fabric. Look for stainless steel or rustproof pins.

Once your fabric is wrapped around the mini bolt, you can put it on a book shelf or cube shelf for easy storage! I like organizing my fabric in a rainbow.

Storing Scrap Fabric

If you’ve read my crumb quilting tutorial, you know I save virtually every scrap of fabric! I used to store these in a large plastic bag because it’s what I had on hand. However, this is far from ideal. Not only does the bag spill often (it’s too full to zip shut), it also looks pretty ugly.

I recently switched to storing my fabric scraps in a large glass jar and I love how it looks. It’s not exactly easy to access the bottom of the jar, but this can be said of the plastic bag as well.

When I use scraps, I like to dump out the container anyway so I can see what I have to work with. So for me, it’s not an issue to access. I typically dump the scraps into a basket so I can dig through them more easily.

Storing Charm Packs & Precut Fabrics

When it comes to charm packs, mini charms, jelly rolls, layer cakes, and other pre-cuts, there are tons of storage options. I’ve tried multiple different things, such as putting each type of fabric into its own box. However, I personally like keeping all my precuts in the same storage basket. This works for me because they all fit nicely, but also because I like looking at all my precuts at the same time.

I use this 13×11″ box to keep my fabrics. The set came with some smaller nesting baskets that I use to keep my mini charms. It’s super easy to take out the small basket to get to the jelly roll I keep in the bottom. I got these baskets from Costco so I can’t give a link to the exact product. But there are tons of similar baskets like these!

For charm packs and layer cakes, I also love the idea of storing them in clear acrylic boxes, but I’ve yet to find the perfect sizes. It would be nice to have something stackable, but in the meantime I’m really happy with this basket solution.

If you buy a lot of mini charms (like me!) I also recently discovered they fit perfect in my charm pack trinket dishes. You can fit 3 mini charm packs in one of these dishes and it’s a really cute way to store them! These trinket dishes are beyond easy to make and they’re so fun.

What do you do to store your fabric? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!