embroidery floss

The last two nights, I've been busy organizing my stash of embroidery floss.

I've been embroidering or doing cross stitch for over 25 years, and over the course of time, I've accumulated lots of floss.

When I started, there weren't many options for storing floss. Grandma Berends had this old metal box that she used to just toss her floss skeins into. They became a tangled mess. (And, yours truly has that box, with floss...and it's still a mess.)

Mom and I found these bags:

And I've used them ever since. I can't tell you now many metal rings full of floss I own. I haven't counted them. However, a couple of years ago, Mom gave me her floss collection, so I had many duplicates.

Since I'm ready to start embroidering some tea towels, I decided it was high time I organized and combined our two floss collections.

What was I thinking?

I started out be taking the bags off the rings--in DMC numerical order. Then, as I'd find Mom's bags with the same color of floss, I'd remove one and put it in the bag that was in the best shape. I can't tell you how many duplicate colors we had, but between the two of us, I'd say we had over 600 bags of floss. And, yes, I threw 1/2 of them away! Some of my bags were over 25 years old and were falling apart. It was time.

Right now, all my floss is finally in numerical order and is in two boxes. I'm trying to decide if I want to put all those bags back on rings--or if I want to simply find a box big enough for all 350+ skeins of floss. And, hey! Maybe Grandma's antique metal box will hold all my floss...

I've toyed with switching storage systems, but I think I'll keep this system, I'd really hate to invest in all new things. And, in some bags, I have 3 skeins of floss! But, it's organized, and now I can start stitching again.

But...I still have all that "speciality" floss that isn't in bags...like my blending filaments, and my linen floss and my florescent floss and my jewel tone floss and my metallic floss, and my candlewicking thread, and my pearle cotton....oh dear...I think there's more organization in my future.