I am by no means saying these are the best or the only methods. But they are the ones that sell best at our shop.
Floss bobbins and plastic storage box
We sell a lot of these, they are something of an ’old standard’ going back many years. I remember my mom having boxes and boxes of floss, all wound on bobbins.
The bobbins come in plastic or cardboard and everyone who uses them has their personal favourite. DMC sells number stickers with all of their floss colour numbers one them that you can stick on the bobbins to mark your colour. I have had mixed reviews of these. Some say that they only stick on the cardboard bobbins and fall off the plastic ones, and others say that they have no problem using them with the plastic bobbins.
You can use a bobbin winder to help you wind the floss on the bobbins (clipped to the box in the photo). This may seem like a lot of work, but for some it is a welcome part of the ritual of starting a new project.
Once the floss is on the bobbins they are usually stored in plastic boxes like the one shown here. You can get smaller boxes if you want to store the floss by project. Some people will use binder rings to hold all of the bobbins for one particular project.
StitchBow System
This is a product made by DMC. You buy the plastic holders for the floss, and then binder pages to slide the holders and floss into for storage.
This also works well for kitting up individual projects as you just use as many binder pages as you need for the project.
You just slide the plastic holder into the skein of floss and that is it. No winding.
I have never used this system myself, but the customers I have talked to who do use it love it and praise its ease of use. There are also nice storage bags that can be purchased for this system as well as travel size inserts for when you want to take a project with you on the go.
Floss Bags
These are essentially like a small ziplock bag, generally around 5×3″. There is a white patch to mark the colour number on the outside and a hole above the zip closure so that you can put them on a binder ring.
There are several different brands and some are wider than the are tall and some taller than they are wide.
For someone like me who just wants to put the floss somewhere will very little fuss, they are ideal. They are also great for storing small pieces of floss.
They definitely don’t look as neat and tidy as bobbins, and that does bother some people, which I totally respect. I love any and all strong feelings about stitching related accessories, it means we love it.
Others
As I said, these are just the three we sell the most of in our store. These are more ‘long term’ storage options, but there are lots of other options for project specific storage. Here are two:
Thread Drops
You’ll find these in all different shapes, sizes, and thicknesses. We sell thinner, cardstock weight ones, and thicker, chipboard weight ones. You’ll find lots of lovely ones on Etsy in loads of shapes and colours. I love them all.
They have a smaller hole for a binder ring, and a large hole to loop the thread through.
Floss Card
This Master Card by LoRan has a number of holes to loop your floss through as well as an area to mark the numbers down.
They’re great for a small project with fewer than 15 colours, or you can use several cards for larger projects.
What’s your favourite?
Everyone has their favourite and we’d love to hear about yours so please comment!
