Easy Tip for Folding Your Fabric

If you have been quilting for a while, you may already know this little tip, but if not, you might really benefit from it. Your fabric stash will look neater and will be easier to use if you will fold each piece uniformly.

Use your quilt ruler as a folding guide. Mine is 5" wide, but wider is fine. If your ruler is not long enough to span the folded width of the fabric, fold the fabric again lengthwise.

Lay the ruler along one edge of the fabric. 

Leaving the ruler in place, start rolling the fabric around the ruler. 

Pull the ruler out some, leaving it in to the length you want the finished fold to be. I leave 12" in because of  the depth of my shelves.

Fold the "tail" over and pull the remainder of the ruler out. If you place the folded end where it is the end showing when placed on the shelf, it will look neater.

Smaller pieces can be wound on the cardboard inserts from fat quarters and stored with other fat quarters. I store my fat quarters in plastic shoe boxes by color and "texture". Fabrics that I will use for applique to suggest fur, hair, brick, etc. are stored in boxes labeled "Textures for Applique".

Here you see the pile of fabrics in the first photo reduced to small, neatly folded stacks.

As you can see, I have used two different sized rulers here and the fabric is not quite as neat as it will be when I go through and make them all uniform, but even now it is manageable and neat. (Next time I will put a label on the ruler I use for folding so that I can easily recognize it.) 

This is such a simple little tip, but I know that it was really helpful to me as a new quilter. I'm hoping maybe it will help some of you, too! I find it inspiring to see my fabrics all lined up on the shelves by color.