OCD Much?

OK before I get started I would like to point out that despite what is to fallow I am not one of those super crazy must label every thing organized kind of people. In fact I would say that I’m only about a 6 (out of 10) on the organization scale. But there are some instances where I find being meticulous saves Future Melisa time, energy, money and frustration; organizing my fabric stash and pattern collection fall into this category.

So I have bins and bins of fabric.

13 to be exact, and for the longest time I had a rough system of organizing them. I would find some fabric laying around, I would shove it into the first bin I found with enough room and then I would forget about the fabric until I rediscovered it months later as I was on a quest for a different fabric. This system worked well when I only had 3 or 4 bins of fabric, but as my stash grew this system became obsolete and I became frustrated with having to spend hours digging through bins for desired fabric and I had so much fabric I would forget what I had and end up buying fabric when I had some that would have worked perfectly for a project.

So I decided it was time for change and I came up with my Fabric Log book.

I gave it a cute cover so I would be inspired to use it.

I clearly labeled the spine so I could easily spot it on the bookshelf.

I started by pulling out all my fabric and roughly organizing it by type into the different bins and numbering the bins.

Then I took a swatch of each fabric and attached it to a piece of card stock. Next to the swatch I included what type of fabric it is, how much of it I have and where I can find it.

If I could figure out how, I would attach the file of my handy dandy Fabric Log worksheet but I'm not computer literate enough.  Any computer geek readers out there who can help me? 

Scot? 

Scot? 

Hello Scot?

 Are you reading Scot?

I then stuck each page into a sheet protector to keep everything nice and pretty and organized, and now I have an easy reference of each of my fabrics.

 

To help me keep my swatch book updated I make a note each time I use up a cut of fabric and I purchased a bin which is designated for un-swatched fabrics. Now whenever the bin is full I force my self to sit down, swatch and label each of the fabrics and then put them in the appropriate bins.

 Easy Peasy!

Try it you’ll like it!

Trust me, I love just flipping through my fabric swatches and dreaming of all the potential projects.

Tomorrow I’ll show you how I organize my patterns!

Happy Organizing

~Melisa & Cordelia