Floss Organizing System ??

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



On Jan 29, 5:12�pm, "Lucille" lzoltynospam@now at comcast..net
wrote:
I know this has been asked and answered a gazillion times, but I'm dense and
I never really paid attention.

�I got extremely frustrated this afternoon �looking for a certain color of
DMC thread (I never did find it) and I decided it's time to do something
about my messy system.

So what's the consensus on the best, easiest way to organize thread?

This time I promise to be good and listen.

Lucille

"Sandy" wrote in message
...
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



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

Lucille wrote:

if I'm feeling "bad" I'll just run the floss over my wet
tongue.

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

Elizabeth
--
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~living well is the best revenge~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The most important thing one woman can do for another is to illuminate
and expand her sense of actual possibilities. --Adrienne Rich
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Donna wrote:
I'm waiting for one of the two
children to become a college graduate and move out of the house
permanently, then I can have my own room!

Donna in Virginia

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.

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Since I have ... MEZ Sticktwist...

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

Louisa

So what's the consensus on the best, easiest way to organize thread?

This time I promise to be good and listen.

Lucille

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

On Jan 30, 8:03 pm, Gill Murray wrote:
wrote:
On Jan 30, 6:15 pm, Gill Murray wrote:

Lucille wrote:

"Donna" wrote in message
...

On Jan 29, 5:12 pm, "Lucille" lzoltynospam@now at comcast..net
wrote:

I know this has been asked and answered a gazillion times, but I'm dense
and
I never really paid attention.

I got extremely frustrated this afternoon looking for a certain color
of
DMC thread (I never did find it) and I decided it's time to do something
about my messy system.

So what's the consensus on the best, easiest way to organize thread?

This time I promise to be good and listen.

Lucille

Systems tried and discarded:

floss braided onto white plastic rings and rings placed on large metal
rings - advantage to this: you can pull out one thread at a time, it's
all precut
disadvantage: awkward once you have a lot of floss, time spent
braiding it onto the rings, no place for leftover useful bits

Lo-Ran - Advantage: hmmm, I can't think of any - wait, it's precut
disadvantages: time spent putting floss into system, I ended up with
four binder things so it was exactly fast to find what I was looking
for, no place for leftover useful bits, not a lot of room for multiple
skeins

bobbins - I admit I never had my entire collection on bobbins. I tried
to start to use this system. Used it with a large project. I hated the
time spent winding onto bobbins. Didn't like the kinks in the floss

What I use now - it's not perfect - but I'm a floss-away bag person -
I have all the DMC colors in bags on large metal rings and all rings
are stored in one Rubbermaid tote with a DMC color chart
Advantages: can store multiple skeins in one bag, place for leftover
useful bits
disadvantages: takes up a lot of room, sometimes have to hunt for the
correct ring (it's always on the bottom)

Good luck deciding!

Donna in Virginia

I kind of use a similar system now. Plastic Bags and rings or boxes sorted
by color. I'm running out of room and it's getting messy so I decided that
I need something neater. I think I'll try the bobbins and see. It's not
that big an investment so I'll give it a shot. Winding the bobbins ought to
be great fun. I imagine it's something like watching paint dry, but maybe
that's what I need to keep me out of trouble.

I suppose I'll still have to use plastic baggies for the extra skeins and
I have a little cabinet with drawers that so far is big enough for the
specialty stuff. I don't have a lot of silks so for now I have a very nice
box that they fit in nicely.

Thanks to everyone for their good advice. It really gave me incite and
helped me to make a decision.

RCTNers always come through.

Lucille

BTW, I put all the specialty flosses on big rings. My bed has a tall
cupboard each side of it, by the headboard.( The lower part are
drawers). I put the adhesive hooks on the inner side of the door, and
hang the WDW, GAST etc all on those. The little cupboards also have
shelves, and five Darice boxes fit nicely on top of each other on a
shelf. For beads I bought the watchmaker boxes from Lee something (
brain fart). Each has a bunch of tiny circular tins with clear tops, so
you can see the beads. I stack these boxes too. In a yard sale I found
some lovely small square boxes, about 4 inches square, and the height of
kreinik spools. DH is now on some sort of cream, and the inserts in the
medicine box, when cut down, make wonderful dividers for the kreinik.

Gill

Lee Valley Tools, maybe? I think they had the watchmaker boxes in
their Christmas catalogue.

Louisa

Thanks Louisa, those are the folk. They have such cool stuff in their
catalogue!

Gill

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

wrote:

Since I have ... MEZ Sticktwist...


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

Louisa



German floss

--
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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.