January 1, 2015 Yep its a New Year- How will you store your thread?

In 1974, I got a few skeins of  white and black J & P Coats  Embroidery Floss. I was so excited, I had no idea how to embroidery and sewing didn't seem like it would be something I would pick up on easily but how I loved thread and fabric. Every chance I got I would pick up a new embroidery kit at the time I did pre-printed patterns that came with the thread. I did these kits religiously, eventually I grew to buy transfer patterns and the fabric and thread to create my own color version of the design. And I began to accumulate what those who craft call a stash. Yep, I kept everything, it wasn't that it cost a lot to get my crafting supplies it was that the money I used was precious. Survival items were more important and I didn't have a lot of extra funds to go towards crafting.

So  how did I store my precious thread and fabric, you might ask. In the beginning, I would wrap the fabric with the hoop around the few small skeins of thread that I had. Then once I started buying the kits I kept it within the plastic bag that the kit came in. Then as I began to accumulate my stash, I progressed to plastic tubs. You see how this is going right, you start out small and what you can afford and soon you have this snowball effect. I would love to say that my snowball effects looked like this:

Ya n, it looked like this and trust me today, I know that the amount of time I took unwinding, and dismantling knots, was an artform in and of itself. 

 So, how did I change this, well I started my mission in attempting to be more organized. I don't have any pictures of what the thread looked like before I began my mission so I have found an image off google to show how the thread looked when it was bought. From this:

I went to rolling my thread onto small cardboard pieces and they looked like this, you will also see some newer plastic pieces as well and one that is simply cut from a piece of card stock: 

From this idea I then went to putting my thread on large clasping O-Rings:

From this I went to ziplock bags and yes this has a little hole cut in the bag with a hole punch and it is connected to a clasping O-ring:

From the ziplock bags I went to partitioned plastic bins like this:

From the partitioned bins I went to this, and this is a specialty thread case that is a fabric notebook with thread sleeves and long thin thread rolls that fit into the plastic sleeves:

No, my thread collection isn't only embroidery thread and mind you I still do all of the above mentioned methods to store my embroidery floss. And this is how I store my crochet thread:

This is my machine embroidery thread:

 My serger thread:

 And last but not least my preferred method of storing my thread in completed projects. This piece is one that took me 3 years to do it is all done by hand no machine work here at all. It is a photo of my husbands and my first Halloween date. It is done on white satin with Rayon and Cotton Floss, The original photo is kept with this piece. The embroidery work is 17" X 17" and the completed framed and matted piece is 30" X 27 1/2".

You see no matter how much money you have or how you keep your thread the best way to keep the thread is in my opinion to use it. Find what works for you and your budget and just create. Even if you can only afford a few skeins these are easily transported and you can work on them during breaks at work, while your watching T.V. the goal is no matter how much you have use it as much as you can.