How to Store and Organise Fabric Scraps

In a room filled with neatly folded fabrics and colour coordinated threads you do not often give a second thought to off-cuts or scrap fabric.

They're generally all shoved into a large pile or bin in the corner of the room and rummaged through periodically when they're needed.

We have all kinds of fabric scraps left over from our projects and the team is very good at keeping them in order to make use of every last little bit.

Sometimes the smallest pieces of scrap fabric can make still something truly amazing.

Here are a few helpful tips we use at HQ to make the most of our fabric scraps.

1. The Tower of Scraps

In the middle of the our Sewing Room at Sweet Pea HQ we have our towers of scraps.

These easily accessible drawers are in the middle of the room and constantly rummaged through during the day.

The fabrics scraps in the baskets are organised by colour, season or design and labelled on the outside of each drawer.

We have also seen people use use see-through plastic drawers for this so they can see their scraps without opening the drawer.

2. Scrap Fabric Baskets

Lining the tops of the fabric shelves and under benches we have fabric stashes for the larger or bulkier fabrics used for projects.

Also batting and filling that is left over from previous projects that might just come in handy.

These larger baskets lend themselves to be a little more of a mix mash of fabrics, and we do our best to keep them coordinated. They're particularly handy for doing your seasonal designs (Christmas, Easter, Halloween etc).

These scraps are great for testing with (tensions or new stitches or fusing appliqué techniques), sewing a ‘trial version’ of a project, or letting kids or people wanting to learn to sew with.

3. Keep Matching Scraps Together

When finishing a quilt or a larger project it's common to have some coordinating scraps that individually don't look worth keeping, however as a bundle look delightful.

We keep these scraps sorted together in easy to store fabric baskets, however you can also use zip lock bags or plastic containers.

That way when you want to use them to stitch up a quick project these bundles are already coordinated and ready to use.

4. IKEA Storage boxes

We LOVE the IKEA! The storage solutions they have are endless.

For our larger bundles and more unique scraps (things that you would not often use) we have soft over-cupboard zip up IKEA boxes.

Generally these are used for under the bed storage, however, we have found that they are great for popping up and away on the top of our fabric shelves.

5. Shred Unusable Scraps

A great solution for scraps that are too small or unusable is to shred them and use them for stuffing.

We hope we have been helpful with finding some great ways to store and organise your fabric scraps. If you have a storage solution that works best for you we would love to hear about it. Or if you tried one of our solutions and its working out well for you, let us know.

Join our Online Sewing Community and let me know.

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