I spent some of the weekend trying to corral my needlework and craft supplies. I had WIPs, finished projects, fabric, charts, kits, magazines, hoops, and more stacked in many little piles around the room.
I threw a few things away, recycled some others, and put the rest into plastic storage bins.
But, I have a hard time getting rid of threads, even threads I will probably never use again.
Many of these threads were bought for a specific project or else they came with a kit, but some of the threads are so old I no longer remember why I have them. Here are a few examples:
I have a plastic storage box that contains a number of colors of DMC threads on bobbins. I only know they are DMC threads because that was all I bought back in the day. DMC is still my go-to embroidery floss brand. But, the bobbins are not labelled. I know I could probably match them to my DMC color card and figure it out, but for now they sit in the miscellaneous thread box.
The miscellaneous thread box also contains some random skeins of J.P. Coats and Anchor threads. These are the only Coats and Anchors threads I own, so I am unlikely to use them at this point. At least the Coats threads are black and white, so I could probably get away with mixing them with DMC.
Then I have some random balls of perle cotton thread. Two of the white balls were purchased for a hardanger project that I never completed, and the other three balls of thread were for a counted canvaswork piece I stitched a year or so ago.
Finally, we have the random specialty threads. These threads all came with kits or were bought for specific projects.
The problem is that these are all orphan threads. I’m not likely to use them again unless I purposely create or adapt a project to use them up. So, I don’t know what to do with them other than throw them in ziploc-type baggies and then throw the baggies into one of the plastic storage bins.
Does anyone have any creative storage or organization for miscellaneous orphan threads? I would love to see or hear what others do!
Rabbit Girl Crafts 
Like you my threads are boxed. The collection grows with each project. The leftovers & strays I use for little Christmas projects, embellishment in patterns I have used before and changing round
I like the idea of using stray threads for embellishments in other projects.
I have a drawer in my floss cabinet that has been collecting orphaned threads. I also have a plastic box that contains misc. threads and beads. Someday we may all get around to using our orphaned threads ;)
My collection of orphan threads keeps growing, but, yes, someday I might use them again!
If it’s just a strand or two of DMC of unknown origin, I toss it. I toss all Anchor threads out after I’m done with the color. I bag all my threads. I have the DMC floss stored on rings numerically: one for the 100 series, one for the 200 series, etc. They are stored in a very large box. (By the way, you would be surprised at the difference in shade between different dye lots of the same DMC number.) The DMC # 5 pearl cotton is in a somewhat smaller box, stored the same way. DMC #8 and #12 pearl cotton are sharing a drawer at present, but it’s getting crowded. I have another big box just for Caron Watercolors (I do a lot of canvaswork). The overdyed cotton floss (WDW, etc.) and all those pesky Rainbow Gallery cards are somewhat helter skelter together in a different drawer. I need to address them. I keep them because if I just need a particular color or texture, they come in handy sometimes. I may have more threads than you. I could talk about threads all day, but I’ll stop now.
Haha. Yes, you definitely have more threads than I! :) I don’t have a lot of overdyed threads (yet) and only a few stray leftover half-skeins of things like Watercolors. :)
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