How to Store Quilting Fabric
You may remember this fun photo from our office in our post last year about planning your quilting room. We mentioned that we wrap our fabric pieces around comic book boards to store them on shelves, like you see above. It’s a great way to keep all your fabric visible, just like a mini quilt shop. We recently got some cute new fabric and thought we would make a little video to show just how this process works!
In the video, we’re folding half yards, so you can see that the fabric is already folded how it comes off the bolt. A half yard is folded once along the length, to about 9″, then the strip is wrapped around the comic book board and secured with a thin pin. A full yard would be folded in half, then in half again, before wrapping it around the board. Here are some Amazon affiliate links to the supplies we use:
- Comic Book Boards (Silver Age size)
- Clover Extra Fine Glass Head Quilting Pins
This fabric storage solution works best for pieces of fabric under two yards, but it can work for bigger pieces if you’re careful. You will have to fold to less than 9″ wide to account for the extra bulk. The smallest size we usually wrap is either fat quarter or strips that are 6″ wide. For smaller scraps, we use wire baskets, sorted by color. We built a shelf above Audrey’s sewing machine just to hold these scrap baskets.
It’s also important to keep your fabric out of direct sunlight to avoid fading your beautiful colors. Audrey’s sewing room has a walk-in closet with shelves specifically built to hold these mini bolts, and Diane’s shelving is on a wall that isn’t exposed to direct rays.
We hope you enjoyed this quick video tutorial! We have started posting these on our Instagram account, if you’d like to follow along with us there. Recently, we’ve posted a flip-through of all the projects in our new book, a tutorial on straight line quilting, and a sneak peek of our newest stickers before they are officially released!
We will start posting our mini tutorials here on the blog for everyone to see, especially the ones that include links to other things. This storage system has really worked well for both of us, so we hope you’ll give it a try and see if you like it, too.
I’ve been using the mini bolt system for years and it works great ! The only suggestion I have is to add a piece of masking tape or paper and pin ( your choice) to keep track of the yardage on the bolt. This way when you pull out the mini bolt, you know exactly what’s there ! Saves measuring.
Fantastic idea! Thanks for sharing.
It’s fun to see all the prints all of the time but I don’t have the space for any additional shelving. Maybe some day when we move to a warmer climate, I’ll try this system.
It does require a bit of shelving, for sure. I had my husband build custom-sized shelves to hold these little bolts in my closet when we finished my studio in the basement!