Review: Fabric Organizers

Organizing is what you do before you do something, 

so that when you do it, it's not all mixed up.  

~ A. A. Milne

When "researching" for my holiday give away packages, I came across these fabric organizers - something I had never heard of before:

Aside: Don't you just love it?  All you have to do is have your own blog, and all of a sudden on-line shopping becomes "research" !  ;)

My sewing room is in a perpetual state of disarray, so I am always on the look out for things to help me organize.  They seemed to have potential, and I decided to get a set - some for me and some for my give away.  

I felt that I owed it to you, my dear readers, to try the product myself first...  ;)

(And if you believe that one...)  

Anyways, the box arrived last week and I spent some time this weekend organizing my fabric stash.  First I'll mention that I had assumed that the organizers were made out of solid plastic - but they are actually a bit flimsier than that, as you can see by this end-on view:  

They are more like corrugated plastic...  I guess one advantage of this is that they are light weight...?

They come in 3 sizes (I got some of each size) and have built-in tabs to hold the inner edge of your fabric.  (You need to supply your own method of holding the outer edge - maybe a paper clip?)  

At first I had some problems folding my fabric to be the right width to fit into the built-in tabs.  But eventually I did get the hang of it - pretty much every piece fit if I either folded it in quarters or in sixths.  After that, it went pretty smoothly.  

And the bottom line for me?  Honestly, I think their value depends on how you are able to store your fabric.  If you can stand your mini-bolts up on their ends, like books in a bookcase, then I think these would be really handy - because you can just slide out the fabric that you want to use.  

But my fabric storage is on those wire shelves in a closet and I can't stand anything up on its edge - it falls through the holes between the wires.  I have to lay my fabric flat horizontally.  Under these circumstances, wrapping the pieces around the corrugated plastic sheets doesn't seem to give me much of an advantage over just folding each piece neatly and stacking them.  

Of course, what WAS useful for me was the process of going through my stash - it was fun, inspiring and brought back some memories...  I'll share some of my "finds" with you in another post later this week.  :)

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P.S. - Don't forget to sign up for the second of my four weekly holiday give-aways here.  The theme is "Fabric Shopper" and the package contains a gift certificate to buy fabric, a set of The Original "How Much Fabric?" Reference Cards, a special fabric buying t-shirt and a starter set of fabric organizers for your home stash!  

Check back Friday to see if you've won, and to sign up for the third give-away!  All give-aways are open internationally.  :)