tip of the day – using swatch boards

I’m working on a piece of fiber art with a minimum of 25 different colors & prints on it.  I’ve got a very definite idea about what I’m doing, but what happens when I go to my stash and it looks like this:

Or this:

Or… this:

Inspiring, luscious, yummy – oh yes!  But I need to get my colors into some kind of order before I start hacking up fabric.

Here are the fabrics I’ve pulled, mostly in order, for this project:

I’d still like to organize them a little bit more before I start cutting individual pieces.  I’m using a color swatch board to help myself.  In this case, it’s just a regular piece of paper that I’ve pinned 1 inch square pieces of fabric to:

It’s not fancy, but the colors are organized in a way that I can easily reference.  I know exactly which color goes in the third row across, four down.  I’ve also roughly painted some of these swatches – again, this is the time to do it, not when you’re finished cutting all your fabric out

Next time you’ve got a project with lots of colors, try using a swatch board to make your life easier!