Organzing your quilting books

No...you can't have enough books....but I might be getting close!!

I am trying to cull down me books for lack of room!! I have found that there are only a few patterns that I will use. I copy them & keep them in a

3 ring binder. I have them indexed so it is not too hard to find what I want. I pass the books on at me friends at the senior center & there is more room for me fabric!!

Nana

I just have them all on the same shelf, I make sure they are all facing the normal way, so I can go to the side and look at the front covers if I need to. I keep books not in standard format at one end and very thin books all together as well, so I don't miss them by just glancing at spines. I think it would be hard to categorise as you suggest, I mean, the fantastic instructions on technique x, might actually be in a patten book! I am quite a book person, so I guess when I get more I might categorise a bit, but I'll keep it very broad!

Anne

Leslie, I do use author name to organize, even though I can't usually remember who wrote what I'm looking for. However, I've also put all of my books into a cool program (Bookpedia) on my computer, so I can look for what I want in a variety of ways: author (if I can remember), book title, techniques, etc.

I do mine in categories, too, Leslie. Great minds ...! . In message , Leslie & The Furbabies in MO. writes

On the shelf, mostly alphabetical order by title.

I have all my favorite authors' books grouped together: Alex Anderson, Carol Doak, Eleanor Burns, etc.

On my computer, in an Excel spreadsheet with title, author, publisher, date of publication, ISBN, and website. I can sort on any one of those and have author filtered. I also have a column where I can put info like paper-piecing, appliqué, includes CD-ROM, etc. Then I have a column where I indicate whether the book is filed on the shelf by author.

Maybe one of you organized folks know what happened to my big atlas when I moved? I think it is about all that is still missing. Taria

Sandy wrote:

Everything I'm obsessed with at the moment is on the top shelf. Everything else is jammed in any which a way on the shelves below.

New books lay on the countertop for a good while.

That's my system... which could be why I sometimes end up with duplicates.

Cindy

It took a round-the-world trip?

Yeah, something woke me up just before midnight. The bed shaking was not enough for the cat to be doing some midnight romping. Now THAT really shakes the bed. Turns out it was another earthquake. Strongest yet.

There is some property damage to homes right around the fault. (Now why did they build new homes on that fault last year? Last big one in Reno was in

1914 and measured in the 6s.) One Walgreens was closed to restock shelves. They were closed all day apparently with no announcement about time of reopening.

I took a four-hour nap this afternoon.

Actually, the behavior of my colleagues keeps me awake for longer periods of time.

I have mine in an Excel spreadsheet. On my shelf, they are arranged by title (except for a few "general quilting" books & some quilting motifs that are grouped separately). I print out a copy of the spreadsheet both by title & by author. On my spreadsheet, I have a Category column & if the book can be categorized, i.e. appliqué, baby quilts, redwork, specific technique, I add that also. I also added a column for publisher, which probably isn't necessary for most people, but I live near C & T Publishers & they have a sale once a year & I always go, because I can never have too many books. By adding the publisher, I am able to print that list, so that I don't duplicate any of my books. (They are soooooo cheap though, it wouldn't be a big hardship if I bought a duplicate - $3 & $5 mostly!)

Not nearly as well as you do, but I had a brilliant idea while reading your post: Take a photo of all the book covers, maybe also the tables of contents, and save to a computer file. Then you could store them in any order, as long as it matched the photo order, and still be able to look through your "shelves" quickly and easily. Roberta in D

"Leslie & The Furbabies in MO." schrieb im Newsbeitrag news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net...

C&T has a yearly sale in Northern California?!!? Where, where? I only live over the hill in Reno/Sparks. I go to Sacramento a couple times a year to fabric shop and have Popeye's Chicken.

Your spreadsheet sounds about like mine. Someday I want to play with Microsoft Access and make a "pretty" interface to enter data. Then I could have a few queries already set up. Right now I'm satisfied to just have the whole table visible. Years ago I had fun in a D-Base V class creating a data entry form. Just never learned to do it in Access. . . . . hummmm, sounds like a fun track break activity.

Checked mine out fro you: 2 College required cookbooks, Knitting books, quilting books and leaflets. Pretty much organized by TYPE of quilting: Ties, More Ties, patchwork patterns, and then quilting Techniques. Don't even have a full shelf of those..but I have shelves of printed out patterns in Notebooks....mostly BOM's.

Butterfly (Best organization I've ever had Patting self on back)

For the most part, I have books organized by what they do: General, Southwest, Celtic, Stained Glass, Paper-Piecing, Loom Knitting, Other, etc. There is a marker sticking out between each section. Craft books are now in my sewing/creating area, in a 6'Hx3'W bookcase. The 4'Hx3'W and 3'Hx3'W bookcases in dining area has my other books.

Now I have to remember to put them all back in the right spot ;) As Nann H says, you gotta have air and books to live!

G> First off, =A0I cannot remember an author's name when I go searching thru = my

Well, let's see: General sewing (garments, home dec, etc) are on one shelf.

The other shelf holds quilting by category, I guess: fabric dyeing, Quilt In a Day, kids quilts, Christmas, techniques (applique, paper-piecing), specialty and general.

I also have a big binder with patterns I have torn out of magazines and that have been photocopied or printed from websites.

I follow a similar format with all the books in my craft studio.

Laurie - in warm, finally, Oregon