A reader asked in the comments yesterday about storing the fabric. There are so many different ways to store the stash fabric. In the trunk of the car, in the freezer, under the mattress .. anywhere your husband won’t find it! 
Please share how you store your fabric. Or, share how you wish you stored your fabric. Share what you’ve tried or seen that works great or what you’ve tried or seen that doesn’t work so well. What absolutely doesn’t work for some may work perfectly for others.
My stash has been stored in everything from Rubbermaid type boxes, to a three shelf bookcase, to a linen closet to a walk-in closet. My guess is that we’re all doing the best we can under our circumstances. While we want to make our fabrics as accessible as possible, I pretty much just take the space I’m given and use it as best I can.
My current fabric storage setup, and probably my most favorite so far are shelving units that we got at Sam’s Club.
I like this setup because the shelves are deep and I have other things stored behind the fabric. There’s more fabric behind some stacks; there are boxes of varying sizes behind some stacks; hidden suprises behind others. Because the stacks are short, the fabric doesn’t topple over too easily. I can see pretty much everything I have and I can get to it easily.
My fabric is stored in the basement so there are no problems with food odors and dust from the tons of baby powder and flour that I use upstairs. Don’t try to figure that out — baby powder in the bathroom; flour in the kitchen! Since our basement is a walkout and part of our living area, it’s heated and cooled so I don’t have to worry about humidity issues.
With the fabric being in the basement, there are no windows where direct sunlight can reach my fabric so I don’t mind that it’s on open shelves. If my fabric was stored in a room with windows and sunlight, I’d probably prefer to have the fabric in a closet with doors or in storage containers.
Think about what works for you when re-organizing your fabric. Not only does the fabric need to be easy to get to, but it also need to be easy for you to put it away.
In a previous house, I had the fabric stored in a walk-in closet in one of the bedrooms but I sewed in the family room. I was constantly bringing fabric into that room and rarely taking it back to the closet. Having my fabric right next to my cutting table now helps me get it back onto the shelves when I’m finished using it.
Think about possible problems such as sunlight, humidity, bugs and work around any such issues. If your fabric is stored in multiple locations (hall closet, bedroom closet, under bed type boxes, etc.), you might keep a notebook or spreadsheet as to where you have things. Like . . reds in hall closet, blues under bed.
Do the best you can with what you have but don’t stress about it! Get the stash organized though because it’s just a bit less than 2 weeks til the real stashbusting begins!
