Organization · Fabric Inventory

Every year, between Christmas and New Year's, I update our fabric inventory.  I love things like this, and it's something I look forward to doing each year. :-)  We have a small closet in the sewing room, and it's the perfect size for 2 stacks of giant Rubbermaid tote boxes.  Over the years, the fabric stash has grown and we now have 7 totes.  I'm trying to keep it to that amount, but it's proving most difficult!  Several years ago I decided to take an official inventory of our stash and label all the boxes.  Hoisting several 50 lb boxes once or twice a day does have the attraction of encouraging good lifting habits, but has little other benefit. ;-)  Over the years I've made a few tweaks to my system, but overall it has stood the test of time and has worked well for us!

I measure each length of fabric and then cut a small swatch and record the length, width, and fiber content.  I try to organize the fabric by types or fiber content, as much as possible.  Some years everything fits evenly into boxes, other years- not so much!  Each tote gets a label with the general contents and a number that correlates to the master list.

My master list is very low-tech, since computers are very close to being my Nemesis.  I just use a few sheets of notebook paper and tape them to the inside of our cupboard door. (although now that I'm thinking of it- I really should put it on the inside of the closet door!)  Each line allows enough room to record the info, and the fabric swatch ends up being large enough to trigger my memory.  Since I'm fairly well acquainted with all the stash contents, using a larger swatch seems unnecessary and I like to keep all of my remaining fabric intact as some projects use Every Last Scrap.

If I use part of a length of fabric during the year, I like to update the list with that info.  I don't worry about adding fabrics to the list until the end of the year, though.  Updating the list each year is pretty straightforward and I just remove the old swatches and glue them to the new list.

Photo-corners mean that I can update the labels easily each year!  This idea has ended up working even better and lasting longer than I originally thought! :-)

And in other news- I recently got a new camera and am looking forward to learning how to utilize it more efficiently and effectively! :-)  So far, it has proved to be much less frustrating and much more enjoyable than our previous one.  Hooray!! :-)