Have Your Say

Opening & Closing

We’re opening the New Year by closing off some of the conversations that were continued at the end of last year.

In All Stitched Up! issue #359 Marjorie wrote in looking for some words of wisdom as she put the finishing touches on her husband’s family crest.

Janet recommended stitching the gold ribbon in full then adding the words on top using backstitch. If Mary was tackling the project herself, she’d mark out her lettering, embroider the gold ribbon ensuring she encroached on the edge of the letters ever so slightly, then finish off by embroidering the letters themselves ensuring any encroachment of gold was covered in the process!

Unlike both Janet and Mary, Tommye ‘would embroider the letters first and then work the gold in around them.’

Depending on the size of the crest, Roberta suggested two ways Marjorie could tackle the stitching before her. If the ribbon was narrow, Roberta advised doing the gold stitching first to form the ribbon before adding the letters. However, recommended the opposite if the area was wide as the letters could be embroidered first, then the background filled.

Karla suggested that Marjorie visit Mary Corbet’s website Needle ‘n Thread, as not only is her knowledge exceptional, but her site is easy to navigate.

Or Nué was Emily’s technique of choice and she pointed Marjorie in the direction of The Goldwork Guild to find out more. The ever-informed Alison Cole also joined in on the conversation and recommended Or Nué as well as the technique allows both the lettering and background to be worked at the same time.

If you’re willing to share the final result Marjorie, not only would we love to see the crest, but Janet is particularly eager to see the finished result and hopes you enjoy the process.

Terry also posed a question in ASU #359 hoping someone would be able to point her in the direction of a storage system that would help her tame her currently untameable ‘Ziplock’ bags!

‘Does anyone know if a case, drawer or box to place these bags in, in numerical order, for storage and easy access exists?!’

Assuming the bags Terry is using are 3” x 5”, Carol suggests using iDesign Stackable Bins that are readily available through The Container Store in the USA. Whilst they’re often used for organising refrigerators, Carol uses them to store the clear cellophane pockets that house her card making dies and rubber stamps.

Like Terry, Deborah also stores her thread in Ziplock bags, placing them in a card catalogue similar to what is found in many libraries. Sandra managed to find such a catalogue at an antique store recently that fits her Floss-A-Way bags perfectly. Sandra also uses long, thin knitting needles through the holes in the corners of the bags to keep them in order.

Whilst Dianne has found success by storing her floss bags on rings:

‘I have quite a bit of thread, so I have eight, 3” rings. The bags are in numerical order on the rings, and as I don’t have a lot of space in my stitching room, I bought eight adhesive hooks and spaced them evenly on the inside of the closet door. I even cut adhesive vinyl labels so I would know at a glance which numbers were hanging on which hook.’

Like Dianne, Roberta and her daughter are also advocates of the ‘Numerically Ordered D-Ring’ method. However, when it comes to storing her Caron threads, Roberta prefers to use photo size, archival storage boxes that are often used for storing scrapbooking supplies.

Susan also uses photo boxes to store her bags in numerical order. Susan has multiple boxes as some of her threads are stored numerically, whilst others are stored by thread type or manufacturer. Another method Susan uses to store her threads came about from a retreat activity:

‘I use a tag for each project from old greeting cards. I simply use a paper punch to make them, then place them on the ring with the threads for a particular project.’

One of the Inspirations Community suggested Terry watch this YouTube clip HERE from ‘Living on a Dime’ as she unpacks how she uses Ziplock bags to organise her thread stash.

Ann’s advice was to insert a piece of card inside each bag so they’ll be self-supporting, which would allow them to be easily stored in a corresponding sized box.

Mendie took matters into her own hands when she experienced the same issue with her Floss-a-Way bags!

‘My son and I made boxes from basswood. It comes in 36” lengths and is strong enough for this purpose. Cut to size, mine are 18” long and 4.75” wide to accommodate the bags. You can even add label frames or just write on the wood to you know what each box contains.’

Mary was able to find stackable, plastic containers at a ‘Dollar Store’ that not only allowed her to store her bags in numerical order, but as the containers were transparent, it meant the first colour in each box was always visible. Whilst the containers hold approximately 70 bags each, as Mary has an entire range of threads comprising 507 colours, she’s filled seven boxes!

Whilst not fancy, Patricia pointed Terry to a Floss Tote that is sold by Herrschners.

‘It holds many bags with the thread number upright so they can be seen easily.’

Finally, after reading about Terry’s dilemma, Velia suggested using ‘a bigger ring, hanging it on a peg in her sewing room, attaching her smaller baggies in separate rings by colour so she will be able to retrieve the threads she needs to work with, leaving the rest in a neat place without crushing or folding if they were in a drawer or box.’

When we published Terry’s question, never did we guess there’d be so many possibilities to help her solve her storage dilemma, such is the wealth of knowledge and creativity of the Inspirations Community.

It turns out we’ve run out of space for this issue but not conversations, so we’ll have to continue what we started next week!