Help! Managing inventory for small-batch design items ..??

We have a craft business with a good problem - it's growing. That's great, but we're struggling with a problem, and I'm hoping some of the smart people here might have some ideas.

Hoping this makes sense ...

Our products are made with two complementary fabric pieces. A big part of our differentiator is the fact that we put a lot of effort into choosing really beautiful matching fabrics, and that we offer a lot of variety in the patterns.

We currently buy fabric in relatively small quantities - enough to make between 12 and 40 items of each pattern. Many of the patterns we buy are 'ends', and aren't available later.

In addition to craft shows, we sell to a few retailers, one of which buys in very large volume. We also sell direct through a website. In both cases, people choose from a photo inventory of available patterns.

The problem is this: at any given time, our inventory of available patterns constantly changing, and certain designs may never be available again. As we're selling more of them, managing inventory is becoming a nightmare!

We've thought about two possible approaches:

1. Instead of offering specific pattern choices, switching to a 'category' model, where a customer could pick from categories like 'cats', 'dogs', 'garden', 'nature'. The customer wouldn't know the specific pattern until they receive it. Obviously not ideal.
2. Moving to larger quantities of a smaller number of designs (ones we know we can continue to offer). Buy fabric wholesale, and instead of the 60+ designs we offer now, only offer 6 or 8. Again, not ideal, because people really seem to like the variety.

With apologies for the long post, have you dealt with a similar challenge in your business? If so, we'd LOVE to know how you approached it.

Thanks for reading. :)