Have you ever heard the phrase “you learn something new everyday”? I often learn new quilt supply and tool storage tips from my quilting friends and students, so I thought I’d share those here with you. Some of these may be familiar to you, but some may not. I guarantee there will be a few you think are just brilliant. I did! A lot of these ideas use items from around your house. You don’t have to buy lots of fancy gadgets!
First up is one of the things quilters seem to have the hardest time storing: bobbins. I do have one of those rubber “wheels” that stores bobbins:
But I have heard other storage solutions from quilters who have not been able to find one of these. And they’ve come up with some pretty ingenious ideas!
Idea #1: Grab some golf tees. Yes, you heard me right! Golf tees! When my son was on the golf team in high school, I was swimming in golf tees. I found them all over the house, in the washing machine, in his car, etc. You would think I would have thought of this myself. So here’s what you do. Match the bobbin with the thread and secure them together with a golf tee. It’s that simple!
Now you have the thread and the bobbin matched up together for storage. You can line them up in a drawer like this or still store them on a spool rack. This works great if you want to keep the thread and it’s matching bobbin together. You can also use pipe cleaners or long twist ties to secure threads and bobbins together.
Idea #2: Toe Separators. You know those funny foam things that you put between toes while you’re painting them?
Bobbins actually fit quite nicely into those toes slots! And these are stack-able so they will fit very well into a small drawer near your sewing machine.
Looks like Addie approves of these bobbin storage options!
Idea #3: You can store bobbins in an old prescription bottle. Good way to recycle!
Next up, rulers. These can be challenging to store even if you have a dedicated sewing space. My solution for my sewing room is a peg board I found in the garage. These are not expensive at the local hardware store. Pick up one of these with some peg hooks, hang it on the wall, and problem solved!
You can even use some of those handy rings you find at the office supply store to help hang them.
Now, if you do not have a dedicated sewing space, you can store your rulers in the closet clipped by pants hangers.
You can also store cutting mats this way too!
Finally, here’s some random things I do for storage to make things go more smoothly while I quilt and stitch.
- I use an old paper towel tube to keep my fusible web under control. Paper clips on the ends of the roll can tear it and rubber bands wrapped around the middle can wrinkle it, but the paper towel tube keeps it nice and neat!
- I store my perle cotton threads for a project in a small pencil box. The 8 x 4″ box works great. You can also pull thread through the space between the box and the cover if you are working in a confined space …. or have a cat that likes to play with your thread!
- Finally, I use an old mug tree that I found at a garage sale to store my scissors and rotary cutter by my sewing table.
So there you go! There is no limit when it comes to thinking up ways for using everyday household items in the sewing room. I bet you have some. Share some of your quilting “hacks” in the comments below. You will be entered into a drawing to win a free pattern!
The drawing will be on Monday, April 29th. Good luck! **We have a winner! Congrats, Carla!**
Happy Quilting & Stitching!
Deanne
