Floss Organizing

All of my overdyed floss is hanging on rings, in alphabetical order, in a closet downstairs. It feels very organized. If I need Weeks Dye Works Parchment, I go to the Weeks rings, find the one with the “P” floss in it, and Parchment is right there, in alphabetical order. If that’s the last Parchment, I add it to my list to order more because it’s a color I use fairly often. If it’s a weird color and I happen to have it, I may not order it again.

My DMC — a nightmare! I still have lots of floss that was all bobbinated from when I did embroidery or cross stitch years ago. It seems fine so I use it. I had planned on putting all my DMC on bobbins but I like it so much better hanging on a floss tag so I can pull one strand off at a time.

When I order a chart, I generally order the floss too. Most of my DMC was in a gallon zipper bag and a plastic shoe box . . in no order. Even though I have every color of DMC, it was easier to order more than to find what I needed but sometimes, I’d hit the “Select All” button but they wouldn’t have it all so I’d go here, there and yonder ordering floss til I got it all ordered. Then, it would arrive at different times and I’d have no idea what chart it went with so it would go into the zipper bag or the shoebox.

I had a mess!

On a flosstube the other day someone showed organizing some of their cross stitching supplies in these photo storage boxes from Hobby Lobby. I thought . . that might work for my DMC so I ordered two of them and yes, I think they will work great.

I started out by spreading the skeined floss out, in piles by number – one pile for 0 – 99, one pile for 100 – 199, etc. I’m not saying there is a floss number 199 or 299 but that’s how I divided them up and how I numbered the containers.

I was able to put about 50 skeins in each container.

I was able to get every skein of DMC into the 16 containers.

In the second container, I labeled containers for the different silk flosses. I don’t keep a lot of silk on hand but if I order “Select All” for the floss and then I use a different fabric, some of the colors may not work with my fabric. Recently, I needed a different blue-ish green so I ordered three colors hoping one would work. It did but that left me with three skeins of silk floss (two of the three that didn’t work and the original that didn’t work) so I need to keep those together somewhere so I can find them when I need them so there’s a container for all the silks I have to use in projects. I also made tubs for “floss to be filed”. I have found a few skeins that I missed so I stuck them in that container and will put them where they belong later. I think I actually have a few more skeins downstairs so I’ll take care of that by the end of the week.

I made containers for beads. I’ve ordered several kits for Christmas that have beads and I’m sure I won’t use every single bead in the box so I’ll keep those in there. There are containers for various sizes of needles.

My plan is to keep one skein of every color of DMC on hand. As I use one, I write it down on a list, order it when I place an order or, when I feel safe going out again, our Hobby Lobby is always stocked completely with DMC. I’m happy to get it there or I’m happy to order it.

I hope this system works. Even though there are about 50 skeins of floss in each container, if I’m looking for 310, I know it’s black. If I don’t know a color, I have the DMC book so I can look it up and I won’t be looking at all the yellows, greens, orange, and purple when I know I’m looking for a shade of blue.

It isn’t like I have to look for floss everyday . . just when I’m kitting up a new project but it will be so nice knowing it’s all in one place and organized.