Fat Quarter Organization

Let me begin with an extreme purchase of fabric that I feel pretty guilty about. I was planning on actually using all of this to make cute host/hostess gifts for my cousin and her boyfriend who are hosting Thanksgiving this year in their brand new [to them] house. I thought these colors would be fun while also a little autumny.

When I asked her about what she could really use and told her about the colors, she was thrilled! But then asked if I could use the colors from the housewarming quilt I made them. Here is a picture of that quilt.

As you can see, those are not at all the same colors. Luckily, I still had enough scraps leftover to make everything I wanted to make them. Pictures in a few weeks when I finish the backs. Fronts are done though! Yay!

So that left me with 24 fat quarters that I was not prepared to house in my limited and poorly organized stash. (My local brick & mortar quilt shop has a sale: Buy 10 fat quarters, get one free.) Well as the title implies, I have [finally] found a nearly perfect way to organize my fat quarters!!

Meet the answer to all one of my problems!

My boyfriend and I were out of town and needed to kill some time, so we went to the Container Store since I had never been. Our goal was to find some sort of shelf to keep my fat quarters on. A wire mesh CD tower appeared to be the best bet, until I found this by accident! We were ready to check out and in line, then he had a phone call, so I wandered through the random middle section and found it! Fat quarters fit PERFECTLY!

I was starting to put them in by color, then realized two things:

1. I did not have enough room for all of my fat quarters in just one drawer. We only bought the one in case it didn't work. Next time we visit in a few weeks, I am definitely buying a few more!
2. I was just so excited to see them fit in there that I really did not care about grouping them by color! 

I was able to fit 86 fat quarters in there!! Eighty six!!! Could have squeezed a few more in, but then the ones in the back would be more cramped, which leads us to the only flaw I am finding in this...

The poor fat quarters in the back.

Unless the drawer is removed completely, the last 4 fat quarters are difficult to look down upon and flip though. This is a minor problem, though. I can pull the drawer out completely and it is a non-issue, or I can put duplicates back there, fabrics I don't really like, or just put something rigid back there so they don't go all the way to the back. That would lose the space for about 4 fat quarters, but I was able to fit 86 fat quarters in there!! Eighty six!!! So really, losing 4 would not be the end of the world, considering I have enough in my stash to fill almost 3 of these bad boys.