How Do You Store Your Cross Stitch Supplies?

Even though I’ve literally written a book on cleaning out and organizing your craft supplies, I am not the best at storing things appropriately. Especially my cross stitch supplies.

I have all of my thread in a plastic zippered bag like you would get when you buy a set of sheets. Which at least keeps things from getting dusty, but when I need to find a particular color it’s hard to root through the jumble of threads, fabric and other random stuff that has ended up in that bag through the years.

Recently I did sort some of my floss by color because I needed to figure out what I had that I could use and what I needed to buy for a big project I wanted to start. But even after I organized them they all went back into the bag, which is not a great long-term solution.

Hannah Hand Makes has some help for us in the form of a podcast and blog post all about how to store cross stitch supplies. She goes through how she stores her cross stitch fabric, floss, hoops and frames, needle minders, needles, scissors, projects in progress or recently finished (or in hibernation) and finishing tools.

There are definitely some great tips in here, but I think the most important thing is that everything needs a well-organized and dedicated space. It’s also a great idea to keep things in smaller containers when possible because it’s easier to keep a small thing organized and to see what you have. She talks about how she converted to using bobbins for her thread and that having bobbins in boxes makes it easier to find what you need and keep everything contained. Definitely better than my random bag of floss!

Check out all her tips for organizing anything related to your cross stitch life at Hannah Hand Makes.

[Photo: Hannah Hand Makes]

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How to Railroad Your Cross Stitch

If you love patterns for frogs and sardines, animals, food, flowers and more, Happy Cross Stitchers has got you covered. With more than 1,600 patterns as of this writing, you’re almost guaranteed to find something you like.

I don’t know if I’ve missed something that cross stitch patterns featuring sardines are showing up everywhere (this is the second designer I’ve seen with them in the past month or so) but Happy Cross Stitchers has 60 sardine cross stitch patterns. They also have 200 patterns with flowers, and even more than that in their biggest category, which is animals.

Many of the animal cross stitch patterns have a modern nursery feel to them, like this set of four modern boho animal patterns featuring what I’m interpreting as owls, a moose (or it coulr be a deer), a donkey and a cow. Each individual pattern is 100 by 100 stitches and they use six or seven colors. The designs will come out to 7.1 inches or 18.14 cm when stitched on 14 count fabric.

There’s also a large number of Christmas cross stitch patterns, with lots of trees, little houses, Santas and word art. There are lots of bunnies, eggs and chicks in the Easter section.

The modern designs include lots of colorful, graphic florals. There are also well over 100 butterflies, many of which at least look like they could be inspired by real butterflies (though none of them are labeled as to what kind of butterfly they are).

You’ll also find plenty of cute and often funny cat and dog cross stitch patterns, though there are a lot more cats than dogs represented. And then there’s the food section, with patterns for fruits, different kinds of toast, a jar of pickles, doughnuts and more.

And that’s not even all there is in this store! I guess all this is a long way of saying there’s a lot of fun patterns at www.etsy.com/shop/HappyCrossStitchers on Etsy and you should go browse because you’ll probably find something you like. And if you do, I’d like to hear about it!

[Photo: Happy Cross Stitchers]

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