Fabric Tracking Infos, Download & January Report

One of my goals for 2022 is to track my fabric. I first saw this on the In Color Order blog by Jeni Baker. She also wrote about it in “How to track your fabric and yarn” and her updated post “Improved Fabric Tracking”. Over the last two years, I have also seen this by Debbie @ A Quilters Table.

My Concept

Paper Vs. File
You can simply track your fabric by writing it down on paper. But often an Excel file is used. Considering these two options of how I could track fabric, I decided to also use an excel sheet because once set up it will do all the math for me. Big win! And I do not have to search for the paper neither will it clutter my space. And I am a small computer nerd anyway ;)

Fabric – Used Up
Quilts: For tracking used fabric of finished quilts, I will used my new “Estimated Yardage” info from the Quilt Price Calculator.

Fabric Scraps: In case I do gift or destash any (significant) amounts of fabric scraps, I will use the option to calculate by weight.

Other: In case I sew a bag, pillow etc. I will just guess and put that number in ;)

Fabric – Brought In
Since I live in Germany aka the metric part of the world but also often buy from US shops aka the imperial part of the world, I would have different measurement units. As I blog in English and want my data comparable to my favorite fabric trackers, I will convert into yards. But you could also convert everything into meters if that makes more sense to you.

Well, we all know how we forget how something is done, when we don’t do it regularly, right? So because I do not want to figure out how to calculate that each time I buy something, I added a dropdown option for the unit in my Excel sheet and now it does that for me, too. Yeah!

Downloads

If you want to use my file for your own fabric tracking, here are the links. Each file also includes a “Tips & Tricks” tab with some additional information.

Option 1: Fabric Tracking Excel (yards)
Option 2: Fabric Tracking Excel (meters)

Monthly Fabric Report “January”

This month I splurged on a lot of fabrics! With having canceled my QuiltCon trip where I planned to buy a lot of fabric, I decided I nonetheless “deserved” a fabric treat. So I ordered a lot of fabric ;)

You might know that I am a big fan of Alison Glas fabrics so I ordered most of the Sun Print 2022 fabrics. And then I gifted myself the full collection of First Light by Melody Miller for Ruby Star Society – well all except for one print that was sold out – and a complimentary wideback. Last I ordered a few single fabrics in Germany to add to a fabric pull for a Tesselation wall hanging I am planning for my sisters upcoming move into her privately-owned appartment. And when buying fabric I almost always add one or two miscellaneous fabrics as well.

And though I started a few new quilts just for fun and to use up stash, I did not finish any yet, so I am starting this first month of fabric tracking with a big total:

Monthly Fabric Report “January”

So while I am now waiting for my massive amount of new fabric to arrive, I will try to finish a project or two :)

And I am also curious how I will look at the topic of fabric buying and using after having done this for a whole year. If you are curious, here is a post from Jenni about what she learned.

If you have any questions about my fabric tracking or the files, please leave a comment and I will answer here and via email.

Best wishes
xo Melanie

So far this quarter …