The great floss organization

First – can I just say how brilliant my friend Judy is!  She did a blog post about Victorian Motto floss and mentioned that she regrouped it by color rather than leaving it in the groups that it arrived in.  And I might have had to smack hand to forehead thinking why haven’t I done that????   I don’t need to know if it’s the July Prim, or the Favorite Christmas Reds group.   I started using them because Judy made me do it! 🙂  Yes she first told me about them.  But I soon found out that they are gorgeous, a great price, more floss per hank and great service.  And her recent blog post did make me look at the new ones that had been added since the last time I had ordered some but I decided I didn’t need any more.   And definitely decided that after reorganizing them.  So part of my floss organization today was to arrange them onto rings by color family.  It’s not like I stitch any charts where they would call for one of the VM colors by name so arranging by color will make it so much easier to pick what I want.  Thank you Judy for being so brilliant!

And then I was feeling particularly brilliant myself when I came up with this plan.  This rack – hanging on the outside of my sewing room door has for over two years been the rack for drying and hanging masks.  I think I originally got it a long time ago when I had company visiting and it was on the back of the bathroom door to hang extra towels on.   In the beginning of COVID when I was looking for something to dry the fabric masks on, I found this in the back of the closet and it worked great.  But in any event, it has been repurposed (about time) and makes a fantastic floss hanging rack. The bottom row is all the DMC I wound and put on floss tags last weekend.  Other than what I might have in project bags that is not on floss drops yet, I think I have finally conquered the DMC collection.   I have a separate bag of duplicates of some of the colors on the floss drops that I need to maybe group into baggies by number so it’s easier to find one of those but I’m in no hurry to do that.   So the DMC are on rings by number group on that rack.   And, I can easily tell if I have a color or not by looking at the DMC number stickers I haven’t used yet – each floss drop has the number sticker on it so if a sticker is still on the sheet in my stitching basket, I don’t have that color and can sub something else in.

Now I just have to figure out where to move this rack to since I don’t want it hanging on the outside of that door.  I may have to see if it will hang nicely from the end of a wire shelf in the closet in the sewing room or on the front of one of the fabric shelves (since I clearly am not grabbing fabric off those shelves often).    I think I may be able to fit all the rings of overdyed floss (Weeks/Gentle Arts/Colour & Cotton) on that top rack and for the first time in over two years all the floss will be neat and orderly.

And the upside to all that playing in floss today, I mentioned I was planning to change some of the colors  for In HIS Image since I didn’t care for the reds.   I found a VM blue that I’m going to use for the house I’m currently working on.

Back to folding laundry and figure out what to have for dinner.  It’s always a tough decision when I just had a grocery order delivered and so have many choices.  And then on to filling that top rack with the overdyeds so I can reward myself with some stitching time.

Fabrics for Halloween Stitches and others

I came across some aida fabric that I thought might be so fun for some Halloween or fall-type stitches.  You know how it is when you see something and you just can’t get it out of your head.   Yep, I had to order it and a couple other pieces to keep it Company.  All of these pieces are 18 count except for the green, and it was the perfect green I was looking for for a particular chart and only available in 14 count so that’s what I got.   There are also a purple and sort of coral colored square perfect size for some smalls that were sent along for free along with a pretty needle threader (the count on the coral looks like 18 and the purple is 14 or 16).  They came from WitchsGardenCrafts on Etsy and the fabrics are just as lovely in person as they were on my computer – I love that when it happens!

Here’s the one I decided I needed for Halloween stitching.  It’s called “This is Halloween” so very appropriate for a Halloween stitch. 🙂

My photo doesn’t capture the colors perfectly, but my camera kept fogging up – it’s really hot and VERY humid outside and this was the second time I went outside to try to get a nonblurry photo.  It has more brownish undertones so doesn’t look quite so gray.  And this green – because you KNOW I love green – is so perfect and is called Sloth; the gray below it has some purple undertones to it and is called Dark and Stormy (and would definitely be good for a spooky stitch)

And then here’s the final one I ordered called Tortuga and the two samples.

All very pretty so I’m going to have to do some thinking on which chart I want to stitch on the splotchy one.  Teresa Kogut’s patreon charts for this month were all Halloween and I really like them all so will be picking between one of them.

And look! – Each of the fabrics had a little silver key charm attached to the card as the shop logo is keys.  Such a cute extra touch.  They will definitely be added to some smalls as embellishments.