You have a lot of fabric. How do you store it?
An eco-friendly fabric storage system needs to allow you to be organized. If you know what you have and where it is, then it’s easier to own only what you need and use, and to pass on the rest to another place where it will be useful.
Most of all, however, an eco-friendly fabric storage system needs to allow you to be organized without placing extra burdens on the environment. The best molded plastic closet storage system in the world is still made of petroleum by-products, and those new shelves that you built…they’re not cut from old-growth forests, or chock-full of formaldehyde, are they?
If you’re dreaming about a new way to organize your fabric, check out these five storage solutions that are constructed from eco-friendly upcycled materials:
Do you buy fabric by the bolt? Bunny Hill Designs used an old grape container that holds entire bolts of fabric and adds to her decor. Crates made from broken-down pallets would have that same worn, antique look.
[Image by Bunny Hill Designs, used with attribution]
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Project Anthologies uses an old wine rack to store fabric. This solution is especially useful for fabrics such as oilcloth, PUL, or vinyl, that you might be afraid to keep folded.
[Image by Project Anthologies, used with attribution]
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As for me, I fold my fabric around cardboard record album covers, which keeps the fabric uniform for storage, and allows me to keep it upright on a shelf, bracketed by bookends. Seeing all my pretty fabric, all lined up and waiting for me?
It’s sweet.
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For smaller pieces of fabric, such as fat quarters or the fabric that you’re about to use to make a new tote bag, check out how This Present Life turned an old CD rack into a painted and decoupaged fabric storage rack to sit on her desk. The paint and decoupage allow the fabric and its storage system to be part of the decor, not something simply hidden away in the closet.
[Image by This Present Life, used with attribution]
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Do you love a certain piece of fabric so much that you want to use up every single scrap? You can show off even the tiniest leftover scraps of your most beloved fabric using this quick tip from Prudent Baby—fabric scraps folded neatly and layered in a vintage glass jar.
Wouldn’t it be cute to do this with the extra fabric that you used to make nursery bedding, stored up on a high shelf in the nursery itself? That leaves room for more fabric in the sewing studio!
[Image by Prudent Baby, used with attribution]
I love that work “upcycled”. I think I like the
wine rack one best. I’ve actually seen people use wine racks for closet storage
in small rooms too. They just roll jeans up and pop them in. I do think that
vintage glass jar looks great too though, even if you never used the fabric
scraps – it just looks so pretty as it is.
I bet jeans WOULD work well in a wine rack, or my husband’s work slacks, which he generally just balls up and stuffs back in his closet after they’ve been washed and dried, and then he pretends not to notice how wrinkled they are when he wears them again. Can he REALLY not see those wrinkles?