Sewing room storage is an endless struggle for me and for most of my crafting, sewing, creating friends. Many years ago, I decided to “control” the amount of thread I own by keeping my ENTIRE collection in one small three-drawer organizer. I purchased a super-affordable three drawer unit at Target so many years ago, the white has turned yellow! You can see it in this photo on the right, watched over by a camel and supporting my slightly out of control baggy collection.
The Color Wheel is my Guide
I divide my thread into three categories based on color. I have one drawer for warm, one drawer for cool and the third for neutral. Dividing the drawers up in this manner means that I can quickly grab a color to sew with. Since I work primarily on commission on garments, I include the cost of thread as part of a fixed studio fee. My customers get to choose if they want to keep the thread or leave it behind. I always encourage my clients to take the thread with them for future alterations, repairs, and adjustments.
A Peek Inside my Thread Drawers
I roughly use this division to help guide my storage choices, though there is some “play” to the rules. For instance, all the “greens” go in the cool drawer, even the ones with more yellow. I also divide between purples (cool) and magenta tones (warm.) And sometimes, I wind up with colors jumping into the wrong drawer like that rogue pink among the blues and greens. Although that is a more “cool” toned pink, I generally look for pink in the warm drawer.
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Theater Trick – Use Grey
One of the tricks I picked up during my years at the La Jolla Playhouse was the grey thread trick. If I don’t have the perfect color, I match the value of the cloth with a shade of grey. While I wouldn’t use this trick for top-stitching, I’ve machine sewn hundreds of garments with the appropriate shade of grey, and then only purchased the smallest spool of the closest coordinating color for any visible finishing work. This saves me a lot of time because I keep a complete complement of full grey bobbins beside my machine and ready to sew at a moment’s notice.
How do you store your thread? I’m host to a FaceBook sewing group called “Studio Davina: Behind the Scenes.” Come join us there for our ongoing conversations about sewing, patternmaking, costuming, and supply storage.
And now, I’m going to take a moment and admire my clean drawers. As you can see in the photo at the beginning of this blog, I just chuck the thread in. Every year I pull them out and sort them out. Of the course of time and working on costumes, they will eventually be a mess again, but today they are looking beautiful!
Happy Costuming!
Dawn Devine ~ Davina
November 5, 2017
PS. Thank you for sharing this on Pinterest!
