Organizing My Fat Quarter Stash

As I was working on my first house for my Advent calendar yesterday, I dug through my fabrics to find just the right ones.  My children–blessed little angels–had made a disastrous mess of them in the closet where they’re usually stored (the fabrics, not the children, though some days: don’t tempt me).  I made a little bit more of a mess looking for the perfect fabric to get my calendar started on the right note.  Like, a big fat pile that looked like laundry was waiting to be folded and had spilled across the floor.  I found some shoes under there.

So when Toy Story 3 showed up from Netflix in yesterday’s mail, I convinced my husband to watch it with me while I folded and organized all the fabric.  With 22 houses and a chapel left to go on this calendar before Christmas, I felt like leaving that pile even for one more day was going to set me back way further than I could afford.  This is THE year, and I need the fewest roadblocks possible.

Putting all the fat quarters back away, I thought back through the Organizing Your Stash posts I wrote earlier this year.  I wanted to sort by colors, but I also have some chunks of collections that I’m hoping to use all together, and I didn’t want to split those up.  So I used a bit of a combo method here, putting larger collections together and then putting orphan pieces in ROY G BIV order.  I did keep the solids separate–something about having them all alone makes them so cheerfully striking.

I’d forgotten about some of these fabrics.  (And I’ve apparently forgotten about them before, too, since I discovered that for some, I have three or four fat quarters of the same print.  Must.  Make.  List.)  On the whole, they’re pretty great.  Thinking ahead to plan out more and more houses, I’m liking the idea of keeping the color palette restricted to clear, bright primaries for the most part, and looking at these all lined up in the basket is giving me some ideas.  Who’s up for making some of the houses ones that we know?  Like, my house or my mom’s or my sister’s, or the farm my grandfather grew up on?  How fun would that be?

For today’s house and to see the village’s progress, check out the Advent Calendar Sew-Along page.