19 January 2014

Storing Embroidery Floss

The problem...
Actually this is only a very small part of it! The rest of my stranded cottons are wound onto bobbins, and I have a growing collection of silk threads and some speciality threads. I am fed up with rummaging through lots of different boxes to find what I need, drastic action was called for! I spent a lot of time on the internet looking at different blogs and websites to see how everyone else sorts their threads. Some of the systems looked really good, but work out quite expensive when you have several skeins to store. During the great sewing room tidy last year, someone suggested I store my silk threads in floss away bags. I really like these bags, I can store full and partial skeins together and they are neat and tidy.
I decided to order some more bags and transfer all my stranded cottons over too. It took some time to organise as I took all the threads off that were on bobbins, I really dislike the way the thread kinks when on the bobbins so have stopped using them.
I also decided that I wanted everything sorted in colour groups and then by number, it makes it much easier for me to chose threads for a project if I have all the greens etc in one place. I have shade cards for DMC and AVAS so I can find a particular thread easily if I need to.  The next problem was where to put all these bags! I didn't want to spend a lot of money and I have no room for more storage in my small room. I decided to repurpose my WIP drawers. I have drastically reduced the number of projects I have on the go at any one time so these drawers were sadly underused.
I measured inside and was thrilled to find that they were the perfect depth for the bags to stand up and that I could fit three rows in each drawer. I cut some card mount board that I had lying around to make dividers.
I now have one unit for stranded cottons, with a drawer each for reds/pinks; greens; blue/purple; yellow/orange/neutrals.
The other side has a drawer for AVAS silks (with room for growth!) one drawer for over dyed and other silks, a drawer for perle cotton and a drawer for everything else - linen, cotton a border etc
I now have some empty storage boxes, so I will sort out my lace and ribbons etc into them. I have a small collection of goldwork threads which can tarnish, so I will use glassine envelopes for them, I really like these envelope, they are used by stamp collectors and are acid free and you can write on them!
I still have a bit of tidying to do as I seem to have made quite a mess getting this far :) I am happy to finally have a proper solution for all my fibres. The best bit is most of it was free and I can move things around easily as my needs change.

How do you store your threads?

9 comments:

  1. Awesome organization, Elaine! Mine looks more like your first pic, lol!

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  2. I loved your idea to store your threads in the floss away bags,really it takes less time. I keep my modest reserves here.http://pishitejulie.blogspot.ru/2010/01/blog-post_20.html

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  3. tidying up is a pain but sometimes we just have to bite the bullet and do it!

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  4. You would gasp in horror at my jumble of floss. I have not taken time to get organized like you have. At one time I had every color available and kept them in regular white envelopes in two shoe boxes. You can't see the floss through the envelopes but I did have the envelopes numbered and in numerical order. Now they are just in a jumble. I am not doing any projects that I need to choose by number...just picking color by sight. But I do need to organize.

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  5. Well done it looks great !!!

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  6. Marvellous! so nice to see this type of organisation. It would make every new project a pleasure!
    Hilda

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  7. your supplies are so nicely sorted and stored. wonderful. My goal is to finish a bunch of my projects that have been sitting around and then I can get at tidying up the rest and hopefully free up some space. Right now I have items set aside for projects on the go,and I'm afraid to put them away incase I forget that they are put aside for an existing project.

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  8. That's fantastic! I need a storage solution for my flosses. They're a mess. lol!

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  9. I use the Flossaway bags too. Mine are kept on rings in number order and then in a big paper bag (Monsoon I believe!).
    I love your wicker drawers though, they look very smart.

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