thread storage
My sewing threads are currently stored either on a plastic upright rack (reds, pinks, yellows, purples) or in a large plastic box (blues and greens) or on the small rack in my sewing cabinet (brown, black and white). I have a lot of thread, and my current storage system is one that evolved rather than was planned. But recently I became the proud owner of these threads as part of a bargain bulk buy with some other crafty friends. There was no way that my current thread storage system – already overloaded and piecemeal – was going to cope with these.
Now, that’s a LOT of Gutermann! It has been the motivator though to work out a better way of storing my threads. At first I wondered about getting my father to build me a huge timber thread rack, but then there would be issues of portability (I like to take most of my threads with me when I go Sewjourning), storage space, and dust collection. In last week’s Aldi catalogue I spotted these:
See the stackable food container in the right? $5.99 for the set of three. So I went out yesterday when they went on sale, and bought quite a few. I also picked up the tea bag storer for the same price while I was there – there are other craft things that will be nicely organised in that. And last night I made a start on sorting my threads into the stackable food containers.
I can fit 21 spools into each tray. I love that they are flat so that I can see the colours, and I’ll arrange them according to colour. Guess what is going to fill in a couple of hours today? Now I just need a storage solution for my overlocker thread, currently in a cardboard box.
And if you’ve got any suggestions for good ways to store the myriad of zips that I bought in the same bulk buy as the thread, don’t hesitate to let me know!
But wouldn’t you know it – even though I’ve had all these colours of threads and all these types and lengths of zips for a couple of months now, I still had to go out and buy a zip and some thread to get an exact match for the jacket that I’m making at the moment!
I love all your cottons in their clever storage, and I totally agree, I always have to buy something for my sewing, even though I have A Lot of things!!
I store zips by size – all large ones together in a large desk file and all small ones (7″ & 9″) in a plastic jar. It works for me. I like your new thread storage solution. It’s nice to see how other sewists handle storage situations.
I’m impressed with your thread storage–Thank you for sharing! I have separated my copious zip stash in to three categories: separating and non-separating lapped zippers and non-separating invisible zippers. They are stored in two different drawers and I plan on sorting through my stash when I work on projects.
Oh wow, I am impressed that you have such a stash of much needed notions – now that is forward thinking! I can’t offer any tips on storage though because I just shoe boxes for the few notions I have to hand
For zips, I use A4 sized pieces of corrugated cardboard (from cartons) and I pin the zips to the cardboard. Really long zips get folded over the cardboard “page” and pinned on the back as well.
Then I punch holes in the pages and store them in a lever arch folder – so I have a book of zips (and ribbons, and appliques and other things that store better flat).
You could sort the zips by color/size and hang them by the tags with a pinch-version of a skirt hanger. …but that only helps if you have a place to hang them. 😉
Perhaps you should have mentioned how many zips you need to find storage for…!
I am thinking I will go with plastic tubs sorted by size – not too deep though so it’s easy to rummage through.
Wow. I’m loving the idea of bulk purchasing thread and zips. Can you share who you purchased from?
Hi there Kathy – we were lucky enough to get a bulk purchase from a sewing shop that was closing down, through GraysOnline.com. They are an online auction site. We put in a few bids and were the lucky winners!