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?