HP: Oh My Fabric

Turns out I have a ton of fabric. And ribbon.

Which means that finding some way for it to be organized was essential. Previously I had put most of my fabric in clear plastic drawers. It was color coordinated but I couldn’t really see what kind of fabric I had. It also was a huge mess when I went looking for something. It also was a pain to get everything back in its drawer. In one word it was a disaster.

First I took everything out of the drawers. Then took two toy cabinets the kids weren’t using from the playroom and stacked them on top of each other. The top one was missing a door so I took the other one off for open shelving. I do love open shelving.

I had seen things like this and wanted to do something similar. There is a place you can buy the mini bolts or another blog I found had bought a foam board and cut it up. I really wanted to use things I had around the house.

Since we moved in to our house a year ago we haven’t completely rid the place of cardboard boxes. So I took a few and started cutting them up. Then I wrapped the larger pieces around them. All the sorting and folding was a huge project. When it was finally done I was so pleased.

And so exhausted!

Next was the smaller pieces. I have this problem of finding things online but not really paying attention about things like dimensions and then getting them and they’re so off of what I had envisioned. Knowing this about myself I was vigilant in measuring my shelves and searching high and low for small bins that would fit into the space. I finally found some small bins from Bed Bath and Beyond that I thought would work. I ordered more than I needed a bunch and was so happy when they came and fit perfectly.

I loved being able to have a small window with a hint of what’s inside.

It was lots and lots of folding and sorting. But, again, when it was done, I was so happy.

While I did try (Amy!) to purge some of the fabric I had stashed there were still some scraps I wasn’t quite ready to be part with. I used quart sized mason jars, that I had on hand, to fill up with all the small scraps.

And while I wish I could say this is all my fabric. I can’t. Because it’s not. I have larger pieces grouped together in my storage area under the stairs. Things like my felt and tulle and the like. Even so I’m happy with what I have been able to do.

My ribbon collection was equally daunting. I inherited a large amount of ribbon from my grandmother. She had them sorted into zip lock bags according to color in a plastic bin. I’ve been going along with this but again also wanted to see what I had. I had seen this and really wanted to do it, since I had the special hanger, but couldn’t make the spools fit in a functioning way.

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So it was back to the drawing board. And there I sat for a long time. I started working on the pieces of ribbon I had not on spools. Which was, shockingly, a lot. I adapted another idea I had seen somewhere and got large popsicle sticks and wrapped them up with ribbon. It worked perfectly.

In my cleaning and sorting I found a long dowel that would fit between the two brackets (that were taken down in another room) I used to hang up my shelf (which I got from Home Depot). The idea finally came to me to put the ribbon on it.

The trick came in deciding which ribbon to put up. Since this isn’t even close to all of it. I did have a little person helping me. Although I did have to edit some of her choices. If I didn’t there would be whole lot more of the pink variety.

For the rest I used two more of the bins I used for the fabric. I put them on top of the fabric cabinet and while they aren’t as insight as the others it’s still very accessible.

It seemed like once I got over these two huge hurdles the rest was a little easier to work through.

Now I need to find stuff to do with all these things!