How do you store your floss?

I'm a philistine! I keep mine in their original hanks in a number of sandwich size Ziplock bags, sorted by color. IOW a bag of blues, one of greens, one of reds etc. etc. Works for me, but then I only do surface embroidery, where I pick out my colors by "floss tossing". After I select the colors for a project, I move them onto one of my artist's palette type gadgets, with holes all round onto which I can loop the entire hank with a lark's head knot.

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans

Hi Amber! There are lots of great ways to store floss and it sounds like you are using many of them!! I personally have tried many different systems and finally decided on baggies. I use the less expensive snack bags to store mine and I cut teach skein into 18" long segments so that I can just pull out a number of lengths and attach them to a floss card with a slip knot. Then the baggie stays in my floss box (photo boxes) and I always have that color available for other projects. This just seems to work better for me and I'm not always searching through my many WIPs to find where the main stash of a certain color is.

Johanna

Amber wrote: How do you store your

Hi, Amber -

I'll cast another vote for floss-away bags...or that system, using whatever bags I get. I use the JoAnn's coupons to stock up on those, or sometimes little snack-size sandwich bags with a hole punched. I keep them sorted numerically on big metal rings, usually 200 numbers to a ring (that is, one ring with 400s and 500s, one with 600s and 700s, etc.) This makes it fairly easy to sort through to pull floss for a project.

The rings are stashed in a big tote bag.

HTH, Sue

Go to the hardware store and buy parts cabinets. Take a skein of floss along so you can see which cabinet will allow you to lay it more or less flat.

Since I have multiple brands of floss, I separate by color. The friend who copied my system has only DMC, so she sorts by number.

I have all mine in their original labels and have them in those hardware parts cabinets. You can see a picture of them in my webshots album:

Joan

Y'know, I need another cabinet for my rayon. Got to get over to the hardware store.

I use floss away bags on rings by number for my DMC floss. I then hang those on belt hangers that are joined by extender hooks.

Everything else, floss and fiber-wise, is in photo boxes in hanging sweater organizers.

Cheryl,

Did you catch the ultimate storage unit from ABC Stitch Therapy????

WOW. That's something worth saving up for someday.

-Margaret

I do exactly what Sue does. One plastic tote has all my DMC floss. Another tote has all the overdyed cottons and my growing collection of silks. A third tote has Flower Thread, linen thread, and DMC perle cottons and metallics.

Donna in Virginia

Hi Amber,

I use DMC & Eterna Silks. When dd was a toddler, I used to keep them all labeled in separate ziploc baggies. But one day she got into them and mixed the whole works into one big tangled mess without the attached colour numbers. I had to buy a colour card to re-number a hundred or so skeins. Since then I've cut each colour to length, wrapped it around a pre-numbered paper bobbin, and kept them in a craft box in my buffet. Each craft box is labeled by numbers such as DMC 225 - 250. It's a little work, but I always know exactly what I've got and where it is.

Maureen

Double wow! I want one!

I WANT ONE - after I get my craft room. How soon until DS moves out??? (DD might move out first!)

I wind my floss on bobbins and keep the bobbins in small plastic boxes, arranged by number. I pull the colors I need for the project I'm working on and store them with the project in a large ziploc bag.

Elizabeth

We do the same, surprise, surprise !

More surprise!!!

I don't use bobbins, but instead I just keep the skeins in plastic bags, sorted by color and then like the two of you I pull the needed colors and store them with the project.

I don't mind looking for the right numbers when I need a particular color. It's my version of floss tossing.

Lucille

The problem (for me) with keeping them in skeins is when the tabs fall off as the skein gets skinny, so I stay with the bobbins.

just one? What will you do with your overflow?

I stuff skeins of floss into plastic bags too but then I order the bags by number and put 'em on rings. This allows me to see what colors I've got and sometimes I can even find a specific number.

I'm not happy doing it but I put my silk threads on those cardboard bobbins and then onto more rings grouped by color.

My overdyes and rayons are in baggies on rings but separate from the regular floss. My not too extensive collection of silk ribbon are sorted by color and housed in plastic sheet protectors in loose leaf binders

All this stuff is in 5 plastic cabinets that have 4 or 5 drawers each.