Embroidery Floss, Anyone?

My freshman year of college, I decided that I needed something crafty to do. Crochet and Knitting looked too complicated, so I decided to try Cross Stitching. So, I self-taught myself with a few simple Christmas ornaments for my family. It was a success, and so began my love of all things Cross Stitch.

My mom found out about this, and started to pick me up embroidery floss when she went to garage sales.  I soon had an enormous amount of colors.  I tried the little book ends with the bags in the middle, but it was just too complicated to try and find the color I needed.  So, I came up with a solution to my problem; a large box!

However, just tossing all the colors in the box made an even bigger mess!  So, I devised a way to organize the colors in numerical order.  I figure that maybe others might have the same problem, so I thought I'd share my box design!






Supplies needed are:

A box (I used a collapsible one I found in the school supply area)
4 wire hangers
Wire cutters
X-Acto knife
Cardboard/something heavy duty
Embroidery Floss bags (Found at craft store)
Floss numbers (All of my floss is DMC, so I grabbed a number list from the craft store)
Embroidery Floss


1.  Prepare the box.

This box is about 15.5" by 11.5".  It came in a set of three, with this being the largest.

2. The hangers.

I cut the hangers at the bottom, right before the curve.  I then took the pliers and turned the ends in. 

You now have your guides for the bags!  Set them aside for now.

3.  Cardboard.

I had an extra lid laying around (who knows what happened to the base) so I used it to make my center line.

I measured the box, and then added about an inch and a half to it to be able to fold over a bit. 

I measured the cardboard, and carefully cut it out with the X-Acto knife.  I measured the 3/4" on each end and bent them in.

I used packing tape to place it in the box.  It's sturdy enough that it won't move, but pliable enough that I can work around it to get to the thread.

4.  The fun part: Putting the colors in the bags.

I labeled each bag with the corresponding number, and put the floss in its new home.  

It took awhile, but I got them all done!  Sadly, this is only half of the bags I have.  Some bags have multiple skeins it it, too!  Oi, vey.  I have a lot of floss. 


5. Adding the bags to the guides.

I decided to put some tape around one end of the wires, so that the bags wouldn't try and slide off the other end as I was putting them on.

The bags have two holes on the bottom, so that is why you need two wires per set.  I put the bags in numerical order, and slid them onto the wires.  

Once you get them all on the guides, it should look something like this:

From the top

From the bottom

Put them in the box, and you now have an easy way to get to your floss!

I hope you liked my tutorial!  Thanks for stopping by!