Embroidery Floss Organizer

Something like thread is fairly easy to organize because it's on a spool. Embroidery floss, however, is a little more challenging. It comes with that little paper wrapped around it and, once that's removed, you have loose floss that can be difficult to organize. When you have lots and lots of different floss colors you can end up with quite a mess. But there's a really easy way to organize floss as well as other embroidery notions, making them neat as well as portable.

Use a three-ring binder and you can get all your embroidery stuff in order right away. It's easy to give an ordinary three-ring binder a cute theme when you use sticky shelf liner to cover it. This step is optional but very easy.

Use zipper-lock bags as the containers for the embroidery floss assortment. Poke a hole - or more than one - on the side of the bag. Use the hole(s) to place the bag in the binder. If you're using bags that aren't large enough for all three rings, just stagger them as you hook them on one or more of the rings.

Put a piece of tape on each bag and write the floss color number, the name of the item that you previously used the floss for, or other info on it. Or, use a permanent marker to write directly on the bag. Permanent markers now come in all sorts of colors and that makes it easy to create color scheme for the entire binder.

Embroidery floss has a number printed on it, to let you know what color it is, and those numbers can help you file the various floss colors. Put them in the binder in numerical order and you can easily find the color you want.

Place one or more skeins of floss in each bag. Make additional bags to hold needles, embroidery rings, and other notions. Continue the project by making a place to hold instructions and other papers. Simply cut a piece of paper or stiff plastic and glue or tape it to the inside of the cover, towards the bottom, on the front and/or back. The simple pocket makes it easy to keep patterns, instructions, small fabric pieces, and more.

With everything you need in a single binder, it's easy to take your embroidery work with you, anywhere you go. Just open the binder, unzip a bag, and you're ready to get creative.