Fat Quarter Fabric Storage

     Once a year I go to a local quilt shop and stock up on fat quarters.  When I am making a custom quilt for someone they often times don't have fabric picked out yet.  They will come over and we go through the fabric to see what they like.  Sometimes the quilt is made completely out of my stash, or we order fabric for them.  

      Just like most quilters, my fabric stash is big!  This is how I used to keep fat quarters:

    This is a shoe organizer from Target.  This is where my kids still keep their fabric.  I had my fabric color coordinated and stacked as tall as I could get it!  I used three of the organizers and still didn't have enough room.

      I had a couple of problems with this type of organization-

      1) Because it was color coordinated I would be separating lines of fabric.  

This fabric line would be split up and put in different places.  I would often times end up with one or two odd fabrics that didn't go with anything.

      2) the fabrics were stacked two deep and I would need to pull everything out in order to see all the fabric in one color.

       3) my clients felt completely overwhelmed by the sheer amount of fabric.  This was the biggest problem I was finding.  I think my stash is wonderful, fun, and a great source of inspiration.  I love mixing and matching fabric lines and colors.  But my clients would come in and sit down with me and get not know where to begin or what fabric they liked.    

     So here is my solution-

When I buy my stock once a year I go to the  quilt shop with gallon (and bigger) ziploc bags.  As I grab fat quarters I put them in a bag and keep them with the fabric line. I also have several large ziploc bags that contain my "basics" fabric stash.

     Then I store the ziploc bags on shelves in my quilting room.  I admit that it isn't at pretty as my shoe organizer way.  I loved being able to see a rainbow on my shelf, BUT there is a couple of positives of keeping my fabric like this-

1) My clients are able to quickly see what type of fabric they like.  We talk a bit about color and design, and then I pull bags for them to look at.  It has made my job so much easier!!  I still add or take away some different fabric, but WOW.  It has saved time and hassle for my clients.

2) I have kids at home and they are always welcome in my quilting room when I am in there.  For some reason having my fabric on the shoe organizer was a big draw for the kids to pull all of the fabric out!  It was such a huge mess!  Now they leave it alone. They don't touch the bags and I don't have to sit for hours and organize fabric.  

So here is what part of my shelf looks like

How do you organize your fat quarters?