The latest daily challenge to declutter my sewing room certainly took more than a day! I’m doing the declutter challenge from Karen of Just Get It Done Quilts, each daily prompt is on youtube, I think there’s 21 challenges with the idea that you start on January 1st. I was very late getting to the party, I didn’t hear about it until February. I’ve been working on Day 9 but it’s taken quite a while as it’s all about threads…of any sort!!! As I sew, quilt and embroider, I have rather a lot of threads, all different types…

Sewing thread; reels are stored on open racks on my pegboard, a couple of years ago I bought a box of 60 Guterman threads, random colours, as it was such a good price. I have them on the pinboard sorted by colour. It has been helpful having a wide range of colour as invariably I have a thread which will match fabric enough. Overlocker threads (the big cones at the top) have been sorted too, some of them were very dusty, which doesn’t do your sewing machine any good. I realised it was just the top row that was really dusty, so after dusting them I rearranged them and put a sheet of plastic over the top row, it’s not noticeable but it will hopefully protect them a bit.

Bobbins for my sewing machine are in their own little box in the drawer next to may machine, I’m not often that fussy to perfectly colour match the bobbin thread, I have a few colours which I use alot, greys, off white. Any part bobbins which I couldn’t see myself using I pulled the thread off .

Embroidery threads; I have rather a lot so it has taken a while to organise. A few years ago I treated myself to some storage units by Rod’s Creations on Ebay. He makes them himself to order so you can change the design to make it work for you, size-wise they fit perfectly into the Kallax units from IKEA. I have two of these, five drawers in each, all but one drawer is embroidery thread! One drawer has the feet for my sewing machine in, it works brilliantly as I can see all the different feet easily and it’s just behind me when I’m sewing. One day I’ll get round to painting the drawer fronts!

Hand embroidery threads are stored in these drawers. I keep the DMC in numerical order and special threads are organised purely by colour as that is often how I choose the thread and use it. A couple of years ago I treated myself to a set of Pip and Chip bobbins, I love them! Each acrylic bobbin is printed with the number and colour. Over the last couple of days I’ve also sorted out my spare skeins of DMC, I inherited a few when we cleared my mum’s house and someone on facebook recently was selling 100 skeins for about £30…so I’ve a few spares now! I’ve put them all together in a box with a notebook listing all the numbers so I can easily check if I have a spare when one runs out.

I used to keep all other embroidery threads in a large pretty box. I realised however because they were in a bit of a tangle, I rarely used them, I couldn’t really see what I had. I sorted these out and wound them all onto spare bobbins. The drawers are all organised by colour with the bobbins laid on their side so I can easily choose which one I want. A few months back when I was winding it all on bobbins I also had the idea of stitching a small sample of each kind of thread with a description and who makes it. I’m hoping that if I want to buy some more I can identify which thread it was.

Machine embroidery and variegated quilting threads such as the ones I use for the Raggedy Ruff quilts are all in a bit of a jumble in a pretty box, I do have a plan though…Karen (who set the challenges) mentioned making trays out of foam board. I don’t fancy a board tray when they’re in such a pretty box, it’s like a shoe box shape which I really like, it’s just one of those you get from TKMaxx. I saw somewhere on social media someone making boxes out of fabric and a stiffener, covering them a bit like using the backing of a quilt to fold over and bind. The four sides can then easily be slip stitched together. I’m finishing the quilt first, then I might try and make one.

My sewing room isn’t looking any tidier at the moment but I’m sure I’ll get there! I hope Day 10 is a bit easier!