Storage solution

Over the years I have been asked the same question over and over again – what do you do with all the quilts that you make? My answer has always been the same - aah uuhm, I give quite a few away and the rest is stored here and there throughout the house. Storing all those projects did not bother me one bit as we had the space.

The situation changed after moving into the new house. Storage has become a huge issue, and when all the quilts were gathered in one place, there were Oh so many. I looked at all the storage solutions I could imagine, and got 4 of the biggest bed rollers I could find. Then I started sorting my quilts. Small quilts. Art quilts. Big quilts. Class samples.

The bed rollers worked just fine for the small quilts and art quilts which are quite flat, but not so well for the big, more voluminous ones which filled up the box rather quickly. The roller lids do not sit tightly all the way around, so you cannot stuff things in them as the lid will come off.

I had a look at the internet to see if vacuum sealed bags would be suitable for quilt storage, and I found that they would work just fine but not for long time storage. Not quite sure where the line between short time and long time storage goes, I decided to give them a try with the big quilts. IKEA had some big and really cheap ones for storage of bedding.

If you haven’t used these bags before, you may be surprised by the weight and rigidness of the end result. I bet you could knock someone out with those quilts, and there’s absolutely no way to adjust the shape. After a few trials, I found that keeping the bag in the roller while putting the quilts in and sucking the air out was the key to make them fit into the rollers. I have smoothed the quilts out as much as I could, but I am sure there will be creases. I can live with that. One roller fits twice as many bed size quilts using the bags, which was all I needed for now.

The 4 bed rollers contain the big quilts (in sealed bags), the small quilts, and my ever growing collection of art quilts which should never even be folded but there you go. The class samples are stored in a bag on a shelf and quilts to be gifted or sold in another. 

The bags open and close easily, and are also useful for keeping dust away even without sucking out the air. I need to take the quilts out and refold them a couple of times a year which will probably happen around Christmas when I go looking for my holiday quilts anyway.

Now I’m curious, does the very thought of storing your quilts in plastic bags make you cringe? Do you make only small quilts so that storage is no issue? Are you one of the lucky ones to have a spare bedroom where you can store everything flat on the bed?

I am seriously thinking about moving on to quilted potholders myself..