The last time I blogged about my thread was here. That was almost 2 years ago. Things have changed since then. I still have my little thread stand but now it’s been attached to the wall.
It holds my day to day Aurifil 50w thread and is my #1 go to when I’m looking for thread. I got most of these from the Aurifil thread club I was a part of at The Quilt Bear. They went out of business recently and I’m not aware of any other Aurifil thread clubs. I’m sure they are out there somewhere. Like I said on the post linked above, it’s a great way to build your thread collection without having to think about it. And if you’re like me, you like to have the selection when you are working on a project. I know there are people who can work on a project, want a thread for it, buy it and wait patiently for the thread arrive (or head off to the store and go buy it). I’m not that person. When I’m working on a project I use what I have and if I don’t have what I want, well, I just use whatever I’ve got. I am impatient and when I am working on a project I want to work on that project. I should say that there have been times recently where I’ve surprised myself and ordered thread for a project that I was working on. I don’t know if that means I’m changing, growing as a person, or if it was an anomaly. Anyways, having a collection of thread of different colors has helped me.
Some changes that happened in the last two years … on the last post, I was talking about only having as much thread as can be held in my thread stand and discontinuing my membership in the thread club once the stand is full. Well, I did end up discontinuing my membership a few months after that post because my stand was full. But over the last two years I’ve accumulated much more thread and I’m now struggling with how to organize and keep it all. A little over a year ago, I attended a workshop and I made a pouch…
Pouch
Class project for the
Weaving Fabric workshop with Jennifer Rapacki
4/12/2015
I fell in love with the decorative look of those crossing stitches. Those were made with Aurifil 12w #3320. I didn’t have any 12w’s in my thread stash at that time but it was now in my head. At some point I made a decision to add 12w thread. So every time I needed a particular color (except neutrals) of Aurifil 50w thread I would go to Hawthorne Threads and buy the 50w (large spool – $10.95), 40w (large spool – $10.95), 28w (small spool – $4.50) and 12w (small spool – $4.50). So I’m slowly amassing thread. In addition, whenever I go to quilt shops or shows, I look for deals for Aurifil. I know what I pay online +tax+shipping so when I find better prices, I snap them up. Now I’m struggling with how to store all of this thread. My little thread stand is no longer working. And since I got my Bailey, I’ve been buying different kinds of thread to see which works best with Bailey. To my dismay, he doesn’t like my fave Aurifil. But he loves Superior Threads.
As you know, I started quilting Moon Glow before I went on vacation. I wasn’t able to finish it before I left so almost three weeks went by before I went back to quilting it. I went back to it recently and with about half a border left to go, ran out of bobbin thread. I went to go rewind bobbin thread and couldn’t find the spool. I was using dark navy Aurifil 50w #2784. I don’t remember using up the thread but I might have. I had wound a bunch of bobbin thread when I first started quilting and I may have used up the spool. I don’t remember. With me heading off to vacation I was packing up some projects and I may have thrown the spool in a project bag to take with me and decided at the last minute not to take. I don’t remember. I looked everywhere I stash thread and realized that I may have a problem…. a thread problem…
Here are the places I store thread… you already know about the thread stand on the wall. When I’m working on a project that will use particular colors of thread (usually for applique or for embroidery), I keep the thread with the project. That way I don’t accidentally use it on another project and run out.
Then at QuiltCon2016 I snapped up this collection of 40w. I love 40w for machine quilting. I haven’t used it yet for hand quilting but I’m planning to try it out on Raining Cats and Dogs when I’m done using the cream colored quilting thread.
Here’s my box of cones and other stuff. The cones consist of aurifil 50w, 40w, and Superior Thread thread for the mid arm and some thinner thread that I wanted to try on the Bernina and haven’t yet gotten to. I’ve got some machine embroidery thread in there, mono poly, and some yucky older thread that I bought when I didn’t know any better or someone gave to me. I can’t throw them away and I let the girl use it when she’s playing with her machine. It’s funny because even she can tell the difference now. The not so nice thread breaks and snags and gives her trouble on her bernette but on the days I let her use Aurifil, she doesn’t have those nasty problems. I think I am creating another thread snob. You might also find some of my Aurifil 28w and 12w that couldn’t fit on the stand.
In addition to all those, I have my stash of machine embroidery thread.
And all the floss for hand embroidery, wool applique and other projects.
The thing is, I think I might have more stashed away somewhere. I’m not entirely sure and I don’t want to go through everything yet. In the meantime, I wanted to know how do you stash your thread? Is it very similar to mine or have you learned the secret to organizing your thread?
~Happy quilting!
~Melanie
You did make me smile. I don’t have the quantities of thread you have. When I had a longarm business, I had a LOT of cones of thread, much of it Valdani, but they don’t seem to sell their cones of sewing thread any more in this country, only the perle and floss. It’s too bad, because it was a great thread, with fabulous colors. Anyway, I bought some shelving from one of those places that sells 2nd hand office equipment. It was a system that worked by hanging on the kind of board that has all those holes in rows and columns, and it was wonderful. I just set the colors on the narrow shelves and I could see them all. For the bobbins, my husband made a bobbin board, evenly spaced with nails that would hold 4 bobbins of one color. Now I sew with the same threads all the time, either an Aurifil or Prescencia cone of light gray, beige or white. I have black, too. I get them when Massdrop has a cone order.
I do have several 12 wt cottons and some wools, for using on embroidery. Those are stored with projects. Most of my thread is hand-dyed perle cottons, much of it from a supplier in Wales. I had a printer cut some 3 x 6 cardstock and punch 1/2″ holes along one side, and a 1/4″ hole for hanging on the other side, in the corner. I tie the perles through the large holes and hang the cards on binder rings through the small holes. My cottons and my silks are hung that way – and my silk ribbon.
My friend who died had the plastic thread boxes that hold a lot of spools. She had a lot of boxes, sorted by thread types and color. They stack nicely, but you still have to unstack to find what you want. I don’t know if there’s an easy answer to thread storage, but I did buy two Aurifil boxes to put my Aurifil wool threads in. They were on sale for $7.30, but they are $8.40 on sale now. Green Fairy Quilts They also have the Aurifil cones in white and natural white for $40 instead of $60.
Thank you Susan! This is great information. I’ll have to try some of these out. I, too, have purchased thread from Massdrop a number of times! 🙂