Floss Organizing System ??

It's an ongoing puzzle. I store most of my DMC on plastic bobbins in the Darice boxes. However, I am slowly moving over to the larger tackle boxes from Plano or Flambeau. For my non-DMC such as WDW, Needle Necessities and GAST, I lay those length-wise sorted by name (or number depending on the brand) in the Plano boxes. I am fortunate to have two of the DMC wooden display boxes which I bought when a Ben Franklin's Store was going out of business. They hold all my unbobbined extra skeins of DMC, and small tools. Somewhere along the line I came into an empty plastic box which (according to the label on the side) originally held a retailer's starter set of Kreinick silks. It's taller than the Darice boxes and it perfect for the balls of perle threads.

For spooled fibres such as metallics and silks, I find that they generally fit in one of the sections of a Darice box.

Accessories such as beads are stored in the Watchmakers' boxes from Lee Valley Tools. I also some of the Just Nan plastic bead boxes, but I've spilled beads from those so often, that I'm starting to move all my beads over to the watchmakers' boxes. You can also store beads in the small accessory tackle boxes that fit inside the larger tackle boxes. The real advantage to these is that they close tightly, but are easy to open, so that you have less chance of spilling beads.

All of this, plus my fabrics, patterns and books, is stored in a big bedroom double closet which I've fitted with shelves.

Not sure, if this is really answering your question.

MargW

I use bobbins and I've never noticed that the kinks in the floss last through the stitching. Since I really don't care what the floss looks like *before* it's stitched, so long as it lies nice and flat *after*, I don't mind the kinks.

Elizabeth

All my DMC is on bobbins, some plastic and some cardboard. I used to file them in Darice boxes or similar. It took about 6 and was not very portable.

Now I use clear 3 ring binders that zip closed. I use plastic bobbin pages (they come 5 to a pk) that hold 20 bobbins each. The spare skeins of DMC and my unused skeins of other flosses go in the pockets intended for baseball cards and are only 9 to a page. All together it uses 4 notebooks which I keep in a mesh shopping bag to grab and go if I need to.

I also use these clear binders as project holders. I put the required colors in a floss page and use a 3 ring zip pencil pouch to hold other notions, the chart in front, and zip it all together in the binder. I can tell at a glance which project it is I have kitted or in the works. They will hold an 8 x 8 q snap with work on it or 11 x 11 halved and work folded. Great for traveling.

Naomah

I decided to jump in here, as I mostly lurk. I keep my floss wound on bobbins, and running the thread over a damp sponge takes care of any creases, etc. I have 1 of each color on the bobbins, and the extras are filed in drawers of a small cabinet. I wound the bobbins along with my DH and DD while watching TV. I bought a Plano fishing tackle box years ago from K-Mart, which has 3 nice size boxes to hold all of my bobbins, in numerical order. The top of the box has a small area to hold all sorts of gadgets. Under that is a larger area to hold bigger gadgets. In the front is a door that swings down to reveal the 3 plastic bobbin boxes. There is a handle on top for carrying. Ithe Plano box is grey with blue trim, not ugly at all. When I start a project, I pull all of the bobbins I will need and put them in a smaller box that I keep with the project. . I wind left-over pieces of floss up and down on the bobbin, rather than side to side. If I have more left-over, I wind it side to side over the first left-overs. That way I keep them together and can unwind as needed. Whew! Well, I have been using this system for years, tried others and like this the best. It seems to me to be the neatest and easiest to use (IMHO)

Sandy in NE PA

certain color of

Sandy in NE PA

I gave in and ordered the boxes and bobbins.

I know if the kinks annoy me, I'll just either be good and keep a damp sponge nearby, or if I'm feeling "bad" I'll just run the floss over my wet tongue.

Thanks everyone for the really good input. It did help me to make my decision.

Lucille

LOL! I suspect you'd do that all of once! But perhaps Puff will oblige you.

Elizabeth

Donna wrote: I'm waiting for one of the two

In a twisted way, you could say I was lucky. Shortly after dd got married and ds graduated from FSU, the firm dh worked for closed suddenly, and we had to move (again!!! sigh.) Thus, neither kid can come "home" and demand to know why I have taken over "MY room". We have a three bedroom house, about which I feel guilty when there are only two of us, but it was what was available when I was looking for a home here. So now, I have a real guest room and a real studio. While it lasts I am going to wallow in such luxury. As dh is now retired, I figure the day will come when we must downsize from the current two-story 2000 sq. ft., but in the meantime I just enjoy it.

Happy Mardi Gras everyone.

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.

I've never heard of that. What is it?

Louisa

My system is the wind floss on bobbins and store in DMC order on my colour card.. I have six of those organizer boxes that everyone sells. THey are labelled with the column number. Mom and I used to wind the bobbins while watching TV and gabbing.

Then in various other Dollar store plastic shoe boxes there are a "Metallic Ribbon and FLoss, a Staples clear plastic pencil box withSilk ribbon. Pearl Cotton 8,

Fruit and flowers plastic beads in a floss bobbin box Nice tin with Ribbon( not silk offray on those round things. Staples pencil box labelled scissors _Mom and I had about 29pair between us!! A Coats and Clark collector Tin labelled Linen Floss PLastic shoe box Pearl like beads A nice Tin labelled Rayon FLoss Plastic beads misc. Silk thread Coton a broder

etc All labelled and stacked Every kind had a box, All on one shelf in my craft room.

Seed beads are on the door with a plastic see thru jewellery organizer

8 sleeves across and 15 deep in various sizes. Yes they are rainbow organized to a point.

Non Dmc thread is in a large square basket lined and with a cover. Odds and ends are there as well. My guild had a donation sale for a stash a lady left to her church, and I get several skeins of DMC cheaply, This basket is taken to work for me to use. WHen I retire The contents will be donated to work. Sometimes I need a little something and it can take weeks to see if it is in stock at work or get it ordered and bought. THe frustration of the work system is not worth the price of a skein of floss to me.

That;s my system. Yes it took a while to set up but I get use out of those pretty boxes and there is some order. Needless to say I have about a foot of stuff on the table to put away. Less computing more putting away and more stitching!!

Nanc

They do. I bought a pair of the 'sliver gripper' tweezers to use for removing waste canvas threads, and I love them. They pinch more tightly with a lot less effort, and they were much less expensive than the fibre tweezers I've seen elsewhere. I must look into some of the watchmaker boxes for my beads.

Louisa

I use the bobbin system (plastic bobbins..not cardboard) and I use my Dremel to wind the bobbins. Husband #3 fashioned a little adapter to hold the bobbin....and away I go!! It is very easy and FAST.

just me, Cathy from KY in CA

German floss

There's a thought, she could train him to "Come here, put tongue out"

- perhaps she could do a mock of Barbara (forget her name, dog trainer in the UK) for the voice.

I suppose I should join in. I have a box that Jill used for her jewellry. It has various sizes of different comaprtments in it. Basically the floss is roughly sorted by DMC number, and dumped in the different places. When I want floss, I spread each part out on my bed, and look for the number I want. It works for me.

I just added photos of my semi organized DMC to rctnp

C

If were really listening this time you would see there is no "best, easiest way"

Lots of ways that lots of people prefer.

I keep my floss in quart size zip lok bags. Example: 300's in one

700' in another, I have DMC and Anchor so I keep them in their own bags and then the quart bags go into a two gallon bag. These two go into my roll-under-the-bed storage tub. I have yet to organize my sampler threads....

Up to now I just kept like colors in individual baggies. One for blue, one for green, one for pinks and so on. The bags are just too full and take up so much space that I figure if I put one skein of each color on a bobbin at least I'll be able to identify what I need. The extra skeins of any particular color can then go into one larger baggie. If I can stay disciplined my idea is to make sure to replace an empty bobbin immediately either from the extra stash or from a store when I'm shopping. An A.C. Moore store is opening very near to where I live so I can (I hope) depend on them for DMC threads. Specialty threads are for the time being settled in a little plastic cabinet with drawers and so far I can still stuff in at least a couple of skeins, so that's okay.

Please hole-punch into those bags (don't keep sealed airtight or with DMC floss you court moisture damage and for some of the hand/over-dyes in Sampler and other lines you court a chemical reaction with food-grade plastic bags--ditto for fabric).

I started my overdyes in the File A Floss box (item 4048 at

then my clever husband figured a couple of rods/dowels/leftover-wire-hanger-pieces into a nice, archival quality photo box would duplicate the box and I could just buy the Floss Tabs (yarntree item 8672) -- one of our local discount stores usually has 2 to 3 photo boxes for $5. I like the DMC stitch bows okay and all their accessories except for the Notebook (it's just not a good quality notebook, one of those shiny covered cardboard ones) -- and I've liked lots of other devices that have come and gone (including the floss bags). New lines of thread (like Color Variations) I've converted to the floss bows but I have yet to run across anything that's going to make me unwind and re-organize more than 450 floss bobbins in plastic case I've had for more than 30 years,

I finally decided on the floss bobbins. I'm about 3/4 of the way through winding the bobbins and I'm going crazy. It seems to me that everytime I see an end to the winding, I find another little baggie of untouched skeins.

I do think I'll love it, provided I ever actually finish the winding and set up the boxes in proper order.

Yaawwwnnnn

Lucille

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