The Best Way to Store Embroidery Floss

I am going to be honest with you and admit that my storage methods for my cross stitching supplies leave a lot to be desired.

As in, all of my floss, along with some bits of cross stitch fabric (maybe some actual fabric?), random hoops, some wooden beads for some reason, are all thrown into a zip-top plastic bag that a set of sheets came in. I think it started as a bag just for cross stitch stuff but it has not stayed that way and even though it’s small, it’s still kind of overwhelming to straighten out.

Actually, I have made a bit of progress on organizing my floss recently, because I was starting on a big project and I needed to see what floss I had that I could use before I bought more. So most of my solids are now separated from the variegated colors, but there’s still a whole lot of mess in there.

So to inspire me as much as to educate you, today we’re going to read if not heed the advice of Amanda, aka Crewel Ghoul, who it will probably not shock you to learn suggests using plastic bobbins to store embroidery floss.

This way your floss doesn’t get tangled, you can see what you have, you can even put it in number order if you’re feeling like an organizing superhero.

What I love about this post, though, is that it explains how to actually go about using plastic bobbins, as in how to load the floss on the bobbin without making a giant mess, how to label them and how to store them once they’re all sorted out.

This is long-term goals for me if I keep doing more big cross stitch projects. And the more I do it, the more I enjoy it, so that’s a real possibility.

Check out all the tips at Crewel Ghoul.

How do you store your embroidery floss? Make me feel better or jealous in the comments!

[Photo: Crewel Ghoul]

Next Pattern:

How and Why to Cross Stitch on Plastic Canvas

It’s back to school time where I live, which I always feel like is a great time to learn a new skill or take a deeper dive into something that you might not have learned a lot about before.

Usually when we are learning new hobbies we only know what we know. We learn the terms that we encounter, the skills that come up in the projects that we want to make. It’s not that we don’t care about other basics or different approaches, we just learn what we need to know to make what we want to make.

And that’s totally fine, but sometimes it’s a good idea to go back and review the basics or learn the things you might have missed the first time.

In that spirit I share this post from Caterpillar Cross Stitch all about basic cross stitch terms that every stitcher ought to know.

Did you know that the little bundle of thread you use for cross stitch is called a skein, for example? Or the difference between grid size and design area in a pattern? Or that working complete stitches one at a time is known as the English method? (I didn’t know that one! Apparently doing half of the stitch across the row and then coming back and finishing it is the Danish method. Who knew?)

There’s also a little bit about getting started with confidence that might be helpful at any skill level.

So what I’m saying is, even if you feel like you know a lot about cross stitch already, head over to Caterpillar Cross Stitch and check out their list of terms and make sure you know them all. If nothing else you’ll feel a little smarter, either because you already knew them all or you learned something new!

And if you do learn something new, I’d love to hear about it.

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