For many of us, including me, organizing threads is the biggest part of organizing our stash. A critical part of this is figuring out how to make this organization work for you.
Of course that means thinking. You can think about threads in three ways: by thread type,by texture, or by color. If you say to yourself “Pebbly Perle would be perfect here!” you should classify by thread type. If you say “I need a furry thread for that little cat!” you should classify by texture. If you say “That dress should be ruby red!” you should classify by color.
Whichever you choose, now think about the places you have to store things. In many cases this will determine how much you can break out the categories.
Someone with a small stash and not much space might classify the stash by big color groupings: re, orange, yellow, etc. But with lots of storage, a stash classified by thread type might have five different drawers for Kreinik metallics (I do).
Once you know these things take out all or part of your thread stash, emptying drawers and anyplace else thread hides.
Divide what you have pulled out into the categories you decided to use.
Next either do some more classifying or put what you have away where it will live.
But how do you know when it’s time to split on of your categories? I use two criteria. If I get a new bit of storage, I think about bins that are pretty full and split something (I recently did this with several IKEA bins). If a bin gets too full, I see where there is space I can free up and split that bin (I need to do that now with my Rainbow Gallery metallics).
I don’t like to put away threads often, even though they are organized well, so I keep a small tote by my desk. Threads I’ve used go there and then get put away when the bag is full. I use the same dump and sort procedure.
About Janet M Perry
Janet Perry is the Internet's leading authority on needlepoint. She designs, teaches and writes, getting raves from her fans for her innovative techniques, extensive knowledge and generous teaching style. A leading writer of stitch guides, she blogs here and lives on an island in the northeast corner of the SF Bay with her family
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