Tidying Up My Scraps

I think most of us have scrap bins that look something like this, right?  A big jumble of scraps all jammed together.  At least I have managed to separate mine into different bins for different colors.  (These plastic shoeboxes fit on my shelves real well!)

In this bin I keep my blue and black scraps.  Not very tidy, and it always requires searching through everything in the bin to find just the right fabric.

At one of our guild meetings a woman demonstrated how she used her four-inch ruler to tidy her scraps.  You've probably heard of this before--the fabric is laid out flat, then "rolled" onto the ruler.  The ruler is then pulled out and the resulting fabric folded in two (or three) for a nice neat bundle of scraps.  (Thanks, Judy!)

Fabric is rolled onto a ruler, then the ruler is carefully pulled out.

The fabric then is simply folded in half.

Or it can be folded into thirds if the fabric is too long,
depending upon the size of your storage container or drawer.

This way I can see all of the fabrics at once, so no more pawing through the bin of scraps.  The smaller scraps that I still wanted to keep but were too small to roll, I've just folded and put on the side  next to the neatly folded fabrics.  

And did I mention that this was a very easy, while-watching-television project!?!  Now it is a joy to take down one of these scrap bins to look for a fabric!

Embroidery Thread Organization

I've been doing a little bit of organizing lately. Now, this is just a very small drop in a rather large bucket, but at least it's a start!

I've been using and collecting embroidery floss for several years now, and have never had a consistent place to keep it. As a result, I have little caches of thread all over the place. There will be a baggie with some threads in a drawer, some more in with my crazy quilting supplies, some more in a tote bag with a project, etc. That makes it hard to find a particular color of thread when I'm looking for it.

So these little floss bobbins came to my rescue. The bobbins and the box into which they fit so nicely. I've gotten quite a few of my thread skeins wrapped and "filed," as you can see. I'm separating them into sections of reds, purples, blues, greens, etc. Look in the upper right-hand corner of the box in the top photo. Those are all black thread. All. Black. Because I couldn't find the floss I needed, I was constantly having to buy more black thread. There doesn't seem to be any variation in the black hues, either.

At first I was a little leery of letting go of those little labels with the color numbers on the skeins. But I've never been one to follow those numbers anyway. If a pattern calls for "DMC 346 pink," I just find a pink in my thread stash that I think will look good in the pattern. So I let go of that worry. I think the advantage of having all my thread organized, and all in one place, easy to see and easy to choose will win out over not having their DMC numbers available.

Ribbon Holder to Give Away

Would anyone like this ribbon holder? It holds three rows of ribbon spools, and you can get quite a few spools in there, as you can see from the photo. There is clear plastic over the top, where the handle is. It looks a little wonky in this photo, but that's just from being photographed against the grid of the tile floor. It's absolutely straight and un-bent. I used this one for quite a while, then decided another storage method would work better for me. I have another ribbon holder just like this one, in a box that has never been opened, which is the one I will give away.The dimensions are: 12" wide by 17" high by 5 1/2" deep. Here is a side view below. It actually works quite well, as you can pull on the end of the ribbon to turn the spool, and cut the ribbon needed without removing the spool from the rack. Of course, it's very easy to remove the spools from the rack, too. Nothing tricky or complicated about it!

So let me know if you can use this, and I will ship it on over to your house!