Simple solution for storing a fabric stash

I needed a simple solution to store my fabric and to make it easy to see what fabric I had on hand.

I live in a remote mining town (Port Hedland in Western Australia) with no fabric stores and I've started buying fabrics online in a variety of textures and colours I like to build up a fabric stash.  This way when I want to sew something I don't then have to wait weeks for some fabric to arrive in the mail.  I've been buying fabrics with patterns I have in mind and ensuring I buy enough fabric in case I change my mind.  I've been either buying 3, 4 or 5 metres of each piece depending on the fabric and how much I like... and of course the price.

Last week my fabric order arrived from Fashion Fabrics Club... I was so excited and couldn't wait to rip into that box.... I was like a kid in a candy store... having a little chuckle to myself as I remember pulling out all those fabrics.  I ordered 16 pieces of fabric... unfortunately the white jersey knit I had ordered was out of stock... ah well... I've now got another excuse to do a little more online fabric shopping :).  I do wish I had of known at the time that the fabric was out of stock as now I have wait again for another order to arrive and it usually takes between 2 and 4 weeks for things to arrive in the mail where I live.

The box had 5 spools of thread and 15 pieces of fabric and cost $236.77... then the killer is freight... this box of goodies cost $129.25 in freight alone  One of the downsides about ordering from Fashion Fabrics Club and being an international customer is you never know how much the freight is going to cost until after they measure, cut and weigh the fabric and freight it... then you only know how much it costs once they charge it to your credit card... at least they only charge what it actually costs them (besides their shipping and packaging fee of $7.50).  All up this box of fabric cost me $373.52... which for 15 pieces of fabric, with lengths ranging between 3 and 4 meters and only one 2 metre piece, I think is still quite a good price.  

Now with all this new wonderful fabric to add to my collection I really needed to find a way to organise them so I could see them all and not lose track of what I had on hand and be able to pick a fabric at a glance when I wanted to make something.

I discovered a way of organising my fabric stash quite by accident via a blog post from Tilly where she shared a picture and it showed how her fabric was stored and it really caught my eye as it was so easy to see everything at a glance.  Talk about a picture says a 1000 words... this picture definitely said it all to me!

Below is a picture of all the fabric that was in the box I got from Fashion Fabrics Club... don't you just love how easy it is to see all the gorgeous fabric... way better then hiding it all in a draw.  Well for me it is anyway... it's a bit like out of sight out of mind... and when I can see all this wonderful fabric it gets my creativity flowing and makes me want to jump in a sew something.

For Christmas my wonderful hubby (Grant) surprised me with even more fabric to add to my stash.  He had his mother do some shopping for him on the Gold Coast and post them over to him without me knowing.  Between the two of them they kept a great little secret from me... here's the wonderful fabric I got for Christmas.

This was my existing method for storing my fabric.... at the time I thought it was great but it didn't let me easily see all my fabric at a glance and it wasn't as easy to access either.  I think I'll use these draws now for works in progress and for left over pieces of fabric, interfacing, and linings, as these are things I don't have to see to get my creativity flowing.

So after a little rearranging, fabric folding and rolling, here's what my fabric stash now looks like and as you can see it's so easy to see all the fabrics I have on hand.

The reason I like this method to store my fabric is:

• It's easy to see all the fabric at a quick glance
• It's takes advantage of the whole space
• It's easy to pull out a piece of fabric without messing up the stack. I've always found that no matter how careful I am when fabric is folded neatly and the fabric I want is on the bottom I always end up messing up the fabric on top.
• There's a lot less folds in the fabric which means a lot less creases.

There's still a few pieces I'd like to add to my stash including some plain colors to coordinate with what I currently have.  I'm thinking some linen would be a nice addition and I'd love some denim... some black and some blue would be great, some silk and chiffon would be lovely as well.  Luckily there's still plenty of room on my shelves for some new additions...and of course if there wasn't I'd simply clear off another shelf to ensure there was more room :)

Time for me to go and finish working on my current project... all that's left to do is the hemming.  I left the dress hanging on Elle (that's what I named my dress form) for a couple of days as it's a knit fabric and I wanted to let the fabric relax and ensure I ended up with a straight hemline.  Once I've finished hemming I'll then have another dress all seamed up and ready to wear.

If you've got any tips you'd like to share for storing your fabric please feel free to share :)