An organized floss stash? BWHAHAHAHA! Yeah, right!
But no, really, it can happen.
I covet beautifully organized floss stashes, they are so pretty and the sight of them brings me joy! I’ll admit to having spent hours researching how others catalog, display, and tidy up their hoards of floss and threads, as well as what the downsides of particular methods are.
Chances are, if you are reading this, you googled the same thing for similar reasons! It can take time to figure out what your dream stash looks like.
I love looking at the clothespins of floss hanging from pegs in a frame on the wall, the colorful vistas of bobbin box closeups, and antique wooden drawers that contain stashes of skeins hiding in the dark. They all thrill me. Yet, each of these methods has a downside.
In the end, I’ve learned that there just isn’t one perfect way.
Not one perfect way for me to organize my own, and likely not one perfect way for you either. And that’s okay.
Since I began stitching as a kid I’ve used a good many different ways and one of them even led to me giving the whole stash away because I hated it so much! (That was the individual bags method, your milage may vary.) I couldn’t handle how slippery the baggies were and it wasn’t a good visual index for me.
What I learned when the call of the threads brought me back was that I wanted to see all of them at a glance. For you this may not be a thing.
Lucky Jonquil was conceived when I decided to make my own storage solutions, something a little different and a higher quality than what was available.
A friend and I had gotten together to start a new cross stitch project. We’d bought the kits and found fabric, then met up to sort and wind the new flosses. It was then that I realized the starting and sorting was my favorite part of stitching. I had ideas and goals for beautiful thread displays that I could enjoy as I stitched this project, or even better yet, as I compiled the next new project!
That project didn't get far and I’m completely okay with it, because the real project had just started. It hasn’t gone quite as planned because it’s been 4 years and I am less organized now with my embroidery stash than I was when I started.
Seriously?! How could this happen!?!?
One simple reason: I've spent those years perfecting the storage pieces I'm making.
Every time I try something new it is a prototype and has to be tested. I ask so may questions of the pieces I make:
- Does this work for holding the loose end?
- How does this fit in a box?
- How would this be stored?
- Is it pretty and not just utilitarian?
Then I make changes and leave behind the worked prototypes with their thread to be reworked in a later revision. That's how I ended up with a jumbled mess while searching for the organized ideal.
I now believe organizing a stash is like any cleaning project where you start out at least half tidy and just before the beauty comes it is a complete disaster zone. I honestly have less understanding of what threads I own at this moment than when I started, and have managed to find lots duplicates that I’ve purchased in this process.
Here's the good news: you get to make those decisions without prototypes. That cuts out a lot of the unorganized middle stage disaster!
So, if my stash is a mess now…. Does this mean that the beauty and tidiness is around the corner? Yeah, absolutely! I’m just getting to where I’m really happy with the direction it is all going, and the little nagging things have been worked out.
But that's for my stash dreams and now I want to know about yours.
How does your dream stash would look and feel? I’m eager to hear your thoughts in the comments below!