Organizing Your Fabric Stash: Step 5

This is the fifth and final installment in a series on Organizing your Fabric Stash.  While some of these tips apply to other crafts, I'm focusing here on fabric.  Check back later for tips on organizing your Notions!
Before reading, be sure to check out Step 1: Let It Go, Step 2:  Gathering Projects Together, Step 3:  Organizing Your Fabric By Size, and Step 4:  Organizing Your Fabric By Material.

Step 5:  Organizing Fabric by Color

One of the keys to great quilt design is the creative use of color.  Organizing your fabrics according to the color wheel will help you see new and interesting possibilities!

1. Florals, Plaids, Polkadots, & Animal Prints:  These distinctive patterns can be held back or mixed into the colorwheel depending on their main color.   I usually hold “loud” fabrics with big designs back in their own section.
2. Batiks:  Batik fabrics have such a distinctive look!  I usually keep them in their own section, still organized by the color wheel
3. Warm Colors - Pinks, Reds, and Oranges:  Hot, hot hot!  Include warm red-violets with the pinks and magentas
4. Transitional Colors - Yellows & Greens.  Yellow and Green can be Warm or Cool, depending on the particular hue and surrounding colors.  A pale butter yellow can be cool, and a rich shamrock green can be warm.
5. Cool Colors - Blues & Purples:  Include blue-greens like mint, teal, and turquoise with the cool colors.  Some people would add Navy to the Neutrals, but I keep it with the Blues!
6. Browns:  Creams, Warm Greys, Beiges, Tans, Browns.
7. Grey-Scale:  Whites, Cool Greys, and Blacks

Let It Go:  Novelty prints serve their own purpose, but if you aren’t a cartoon character or camoflague fan, let those fabrics go!  Someone else will love them!
Don’t Let It Go:  A common mistake is to let go of fabrics because they are “ugly”.  Sometimes unattractive colors serve to highlight beautiful ones!