organizing embroidery floss without bobbins

I love embroidery floss. I love making color palettes, I love taking pictures of it, and I love playing with the pretty skeins. I don't love putting floss on bobbins. Don't get me wrong, I love floss on bobbins and I'm jealous of the folks I know who have all of their threads organized that way. It's just not for me.

Especially because I love having skeins of floss to photograph (these were taken with an iPad, so forgive the quality, please!). In fact, sometimes people ask me how I manage to have such perfect skeins in my pictures. The secret is that I have duplicate skeins that I never use (or at least I try really hard not to).

Having all these skeins of floss everywhere rarely looks organized, but after seeing someone use photo boxes to store their floss, I thought I'd give it a try.



So, this is a complete set of DMC colors, minus their most recent addition of colors, which doesn't have an official location yet. There are 17 boxes in all. And this set is going to remain intact so I always have the colors available for photos and color reference.

The colors in the boxes sort of correspond with the color of the box, but not quite as closely as I would have liked.

Each box contains 20-26 skeins, except for the larger clear box that's labeled 17-19. That one has neutrals, and contains closer to 60 skeins. I might be pushing it on capacity for that, but we'll see.



For the main method of organization, I looked to the DMC color card. See, I like seeing things grouped by color, rather than number. But sometimes that makes it tricky to find things. Since the color card is set up more by color than number, I knew it would help me out big time.

Each box, therefore, represents a column on the card.



If I look at the colors on the card, I can see the column and box where I'll find that skein. If I know the number I'm looking for, I can also use the index, which tells me the column/box.

Within the boxes, the skeins are in loose order (I laid them out in order then carefully scooped them up to place them in the box). But even if they are way out of order, I'm only looking through about 2 dozen skeins to find what I'm looking for.



For now, each box has a numbered sticky note on top. This way, if I want to change my system, it's easy to do that.



16 colorful cases, plus one extra case makes a complete set with easy to find skeins!



And because these are intended for photo storage, they even came with an outer case that holds all of the 16 smaller boxes. I found this at Michaels, by the way. And I already went back to get a second set so that I can now set up another one with all of the floss that I actually use. Hopefully everything fits!

Technically, this isn't a sponsored post, but I want to send mega thanks to DMC for generously sending me embroidery floss from time to time.

colors inspired by summer

Here we are, in the middle of summer, and it's about time I pick some DMC embroidery colors to go with the season! These color combos are inspired by summer classics, as well as some patterns that are coming to the blog next week! When I go through my stash (DMC has been super kind to me in supporting my habit!), I like to name the palettes that I create. Sometimes they have silly names, but silly works.

Above, we have "Impossible Tomorrow." They aren't truly neon, but they are as close to neon as you can get with the standard cotton floss, which makes them less expensive, and easier to stitch with! EDITED: The second color from the left should be 741. Sorry about that!



"Super Snowcone." I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure that a snowcone with these colors would be pretty tasty!



Above is "Just Beachy", because when August comes, I think beach. I don't actually go to the beach, I just think it goes with August.



These colors remind me of Rosie the Riveter, but I named the grouping "Waterloo". It'll make more sense next week!



Some summer colors feel like fall may creep in at any moment, but these reminded me of some "Puppet Pals" which are good any time of the year!



How about an "Idea Garden"? Pretty bright, huh? Get it? Bright idea? Ha!



And finally, "Iced Tea with Lemon". I'll take my tea with or without lemon, so long as there's no sugar in it! I've tried to like sweet tea, but I just can't get used to it.

Sometimes I use these colors to stitch, sometimes I just admire them. How about you? What might you stitch with one of these sets of floss shades?

PS: I try to keep the colors accurate, but monitors differ. Trust me, the colors are always best when you have them in your hands, and threaded in your needle!

spring embroidery floss colors

I love playing with embroidery floss colors, even if I'm not planning to stitch anything with them. It's fun and relaxing for me. It's been a few months since I shared some color combos here, and spring sounds like a good time to do that...so here are some freshly picked DMC embroidery floss color combinations chosen just for you!



The colors I was looking for were spring colors, and this was the first grouping I made...so it gets the very original title "Spring."



Yes, we've passed by Easter now, but these colors reminded me of Easter eggs. Not the kind you dye, but the kind with extra little designs all over. So I've named this combo "Decorated Eggs."



One of my favorite things about spring is all the flowering trees. There are a lot in my neighborhood, so yay! These colors remind me of the "Birds and Blossoms."



In the middle of light and bright colors, "Pansies" stand out with the bold purple in spring. These would be great for stitching up a whole field of tiny flowers!



And finally, "Spring Sunrise." I'm not big on seeing the sun rise, but somehow I manage to pick a lot of color combinations that remind me of sunrises and sunsets. Hey...they're beautiful!

Do you like playing with colorful embroidery floss? Share a link to some that you've put together!

winter floss palettes

I think it's been too long since I shared some embroidery floss color combinations! Here are a few palettes that I've put together for winter...



This one reminds me of Hans Brinker. I'm calling it Winter Skates!



In the bleak midwinter, cardinals are likely to be spotted in a tree covered with snow, which is why this set is Winter Trees.



A sunset any time of the year can be beautiful, but in the winter, it gives the sky such warm and brightness! This one is Winter Sunset.



And this last palette is called Winter Freeze. I think it's my favorite of the bunch, so now I need to figure out what I'm going to stitch up using these colors!

Now, go snuggle up by a warm fire and do some stitching!

twitterday: background patterns

After I updated the look of my own Twitter page (as well as my blog), I thought it would be fun to make some background tiles that you all might want to use. I received some lovely suggestions, and although I didn't make all of them, I had so much fun making these patterns, that I might make more soon.

First, here's the deal. You can use these seamless patterns on your personal anythings (Twitter, blogs, websites, printed, whatever), and you don't even need to credit me. But please, please, don't use these on anything that you're selling, and don't use them in a way that would appear to be branding for your shop. Okay? Okay.

Now, here's the first batch...some different designs and sizes:

To use them, just right-click (Control-Click on a Mac) then choose to save the image to your computer.

In Twitter: Go to "Settings", then to "Design". Scroll down under the images they give you, and choose "Change background image."

Click on "Choose Image" and locate the file that you downloaded to your computer. Make sure that you check the box that says "tile background". Save your changes, and your new background will show up!

In Blogger: Go to the "Design" tab, and choose "Template Designer". Click on "Background", then click in the area under "Background Image".

Click on "Upload Image" then "Choose File" to select your downloaded image. Hit "Done" and Blogger will automatically tile the image for you.

(I'm afraid that I only know how these get set up in Blogger, but other blog platforms will have a similar situation, I'm sure. Also, I work on a Mac, so I realize that some of the directions could look a little different for you.)

But you didn't think that I would make those patterns, and not have something embroidery related, did you? You already got a peek in the Twitter screen shot...and I shan't disappoint! (yes, I just used the word "shan't") So, here's some embroidery floss in some of my favorite (signature!) colors. You'll be wanting to switch out backgrounds on things constantly to fit your #flossmood (see what I did there?)

Again, just right-click (Control-Click on a Mac) then choose to save the image to your computer.

All of these patterns can also be used as computer desktop backgrounds too. Just set one as your background, and choose "tile". If you want to print something with the patterns, Photoshop allows you to "define patterns", which basically saves the image so that you can fill an area with the tiled pattern.

Oh my. This ended up being a far more technical post than I planned on it being. I don't usually write instructions for this kind of thing, so if I confused anyone, I apologize! Leave any questions in the comments, and I'll do my best to answer!

Now, go prettify your backgrounds!

signature colors

One of my goals for the year was to create a signature color palette. Back in February, I chose colors, and have been working primarily within those 23 colors. But when it came to choosing floss colors, I never actually decided on the shades that I wanted to be using.

Yesterday my sister and I sorted through all of my floss, and found the colors that were just right. I'm proud to say that when I imported the photos and placed my color samples (from February) over them, they are a near perfect match! I think I've gotten to know these shades!

This is what each grouping of colors looks like, along with their DMC numbers:

twitterday: a hashtag project

Last Twitterday, I started asking about tagging tweets. This week, we're going to start something fun with our tags. If you're not on Twitter, I've done some checking, and you can participate too!

I'm in a color mood right now. As in, I'm thinking a lot about colors that I like...especially embroidery floss colors, because, well, you know me. Often I get so attached to a particular shade of floss that start to feel the color, and the color describes my mood or emotion. Does this sound silly? Perhaps.

But here's my thought. What if I wasn't the only one to do this? What if all of my embroidery floss loving blog friends shared their moods with floss colors too?

Here's how it works: Choose your floss mood color, then tweet it with the hashtag #flossmood. Example:

Today my #flossmood is DMC 3328!

-or-

Ugh. I'm feeling rather DMC 998 #flossmood

You can also use this tag on or in a blog post, or you can leave it here in a comment. This isn't a common phrase/tag, so we'll be able to find it easily.

This isn't restricted to DMC colors, but those are what I tend to have around. And one of the things that I like most about this is that we all get to look and see what color it is that you're feeling! (You can find the DMC color cards here.)

Come back on Monday, because I'll have the first of a few projects for expressing your #flossmood in real life!

Are you ready? What's your #flossmood?