Organizing Fabric

I came across this idea last year on the internet somewhere. I can't remember where exactly I saw it, but filed it away in the back of my head till I could use the idea myself for my collection of fabrics. Here's a picture of the finished mini bolts in the cd wall unit I purchased. As you can see I am only part way in my organization. But you can see what it will look like when completely done. I was so excited to be able to do this! I bought 2 cd wall units from Lowes. I think they were $80 each. Very easy to put together. I then put them in the closet in the sewing/craft room. That way the fabrics will be behind closed doors so the lights can not damage their color.The idea I had seen was mini bolts that were kind of pricey, acid free and they had little notches in their bolts to hold the fabric. I thought of different things to use myself to be less expensive like foam core board, the metal used in signs. None were less expensive till I came across these comic book insert boards. Acid free and one package contains 100 boards for $12! Now that was a deal!

I found I could get as much as 8yds wrapped on one of these. Here's what I do. I lay the fabric out in front of me the folded edge near me and the selvage edge away from me.I fold the selvage edge in towards me about 2"-3"

Then I fold in half towards me again. So now it is about 10 inches wide by however many yards you have. I have even wrapped 1/2 yd. pieces on these boards.

Next lay the mini bolt on the fabric and fold over about 4" then wrap till you get towards the end of your yardage. I then fold the ends in towards eachother to make a point. Then pin it in place making sure to have the pin point tucked into the fabric so there will be no getting stuck when stacking them on going through them on the shelves. I bought floral pins with decorative heads at Wal-Mart. All the other pins I tried to use kept bending. But these seem to do the trick.

I don't know about you but this will be so much better than trying to remember what fabric is in what bin in the shed or the garage when I want to work on some project. I know I will not be able to fit ALL my fabrics on here. I actually wish I could weed them out to only have enough to fill these 2 units. I decided the one will hold all my blending fabrics in all the various colors. The other will hold the floral, football, holiday and themed type fabrics. There was a couple of the mini bolts that I wrapped 5 fabrics on together, just staggered them a little so I could see them all. That way the fabric for one project was all together on the one bolt. I'm sure it will take me months in between real life to get this completely done. But that is ok. I know it will be done eventually and I love what I have done already!