The fabric closet, with pictures and a Monty Python reference

Before I show you my new and improved fabric closet, I should probably tell you how bad it was to begin with! The closet used to be our coat closet in our front hallway, but my loving husband gutted it and refitted it with shelves to house all my fabric. It was somewhat of a feat to get all the fabric crammed in there 5 years ago, but then I've added to it here and there. It has a set of louvered doors, which I despise more and more each day. Fabric would fall off the shelves and get wedged in between the panels, making it where I could not open the doors all the way. It was difficult to reach the fabric in the far sides of the closet because the folded panels take up much of the opening.

I didn't take a "before" picture, and I really wish I had. I honestly had no idea what an understaking this was going to be. Once I got all the fabric out, I did take some pictures of it all stacked in my dining room.




Keep in mind that my dining table had one of the leaves in, making it large enough to seat 8 people comfortably. The fabric was stacked this high all the way across. And two chairs were filled like the second picture shows.

I made two passes through the fabric. I purged the obvious "deselections" (to use a term coined in a corporate layoff years ago) when I pulled the fabric out. Then I categorized the fabric that was left according to use and approximate fiber content, and then purged each grouping until it was a manageable size. Finally, I containerized as much as possible, so that it will be easy to pull the fabric out of the nether regions of the closet.

These are the "after" shots:



And the fabric I purged to make this happen:


And the Monty Python reference? It's Simpson's Individual Stringettes!



Don't know what I'm talking about? Go here and read this script, and then look at these pictures again. You'll be snort laughing, I promise.

I think these are carpet fiber samples. I have no idea how many there are, but there's a box full of them! Yeah, add that to my estate sale! (Actually, I think I'm going to destash this on Etsy... Surely someone will have a use for a box full of 6-inch strands of carpet fiber...)