I have a wall of shelves in my studio. Under the shelves is space tall enough for upright bolts of fabric, but they keep falling over and then slipping off into the walk space. Also have some tuppers there with my upholstery scraps in one, tapestry in another and misc in the other. I have my batiks stacked on a shelf unit in the corner by the wall of shelves. On the bottom shelf of that unit I have mostly garment fabrics for costuming. On the other shelf unit at the other end of my wall of shelves I have UFOs and WIPs along with a few completed projects. I have the wall of shelves organized mainly by color. Exceptions are flannels, Christmas, and non quilty fabrics. The color stacks get reorganized frequently as I decide that blue belongs with the purples or the aquas, etc. DGS has done some rearranging as well so I need to get in there and fix it. Lol!

I got a picture posted on Mission Organization if you care to take a look. [ATTACH=CONFIG]398310[/ATTACH]

Or you can look at it here lol. My mind is somewhere else.

Having to search for a specific fabric makes me want to organize better. But, I have mental pictures of where my fabrics are, mostly. Soo, every once in awhile I find a fabric I totally forgot I owned. At any rate, I think sorting like the fabric stores, like fabrics together, then by color with some really mixed ones such as one would find on the sale table will be the way I shall organize my stash.

Wow!! So many different ideas! Hopefully one day I'll actually have a sewing room, (instead of my dining room table), so I don't have much of a stash. I keep each current project in a separate plastic tote which I can then store/stack out of sight. My stash is then also kept in plastic totes, but all of it, stash and projects, fits into 12 totes.

Everything on bolts (1 yard or more) I separate first by Christmas, Halloween, Easter...the rest (solids and colors) I place on my big cutting table and sort by using the colors of the rainbow, each going from light to dark. My smaller pieces are folded to 4" by 4" and placed on two standing CD racks using the same color-sorting method as above. I know this sounds like a lot of work and maybe I'm a bit OCD about it, but the finished product is quite beautiful! You see, my quilt area is the bottom of the 'L' in my L-shaped finished basement, making it open to my family/tv room. It's open and visible to company, so I MUST keep it neat and tidy!

Fabric is by holiday then the other fabric is by color . This is what helps me out when looking in my stash ..

I tried to use boards to fold my stash on,but I found the boards take up too much space on my shelves..I put all my stash on boards, the thin ones, took over two weeks to do so, ran out of shelf space...all my stash was originally on these shelfs, so I spent another two weeks taking the boards out..I have a big stash and a small amount of space to use. That was about 4 weeks of not sewing..waste, waste, waste. I always learn the hard way! ENJOY YOUR WEEK!

I read in a book about organizing crafts ets. to hang your large pieces of fabric on plastic coat hangers. I am in th e process of doing that and works really well for me. I don't have enough room in my sewing room for shelves. For my fat quarters I bought a CD cabinate at Big Lots. The space between each shelf is the perfect standing then in rows. I love all your suggestions and will definately be using some.

I am in the process of refolding all of my fabric too. i am doing by color trying to put larger pieces on the bottom of stack anything about 12/ yard pieced I am putting in seperate container and small pieces like chunks into another bin for scrap quilts and applique. My DH redid my closet and put in more shelves and narrower ones. went from 3 - 20 inch shelves 2 ft apart to 5 shelves of 12 inch wide and one 16 inch shelf on the bottom so totes will sit under it. put kids, pre-quilted, homespun, sewing motif, and stripe fabric for table runners into these totes. I am not done folding yet but will get there in another week or so... will hate to mess it up when I am done.