Using Everyday Items in Your Quilting Room

If you are like me, you probably have a lot of things laying around your house that you just don’t want to throw away. I like to find other uses for these items instead of sending them to the landfill. It can also be a money saver. I am going to cover some of my favorite things I have converted into sewing room supplies and I would like to hear about yours. So let’s have some fun with this!

This week, I’m concentrating on items to use for storage solutions. Here’s some items that help me with storing or containing sewing room tools and other items.

I have a lot of empty prescription bottles lying around. So, I have put them to good use. I use these bottles to store bobbins.

I can store assorted bobbins in this bottle or I can have several bottles, each containing one color thread. I have also used these bottles to collect used needles. Then I can dispose of the bottle when it is full and the needles won’t poke out of a garbage bag and cause injury.

To corral my sewing supplies… which used to just be scattered on my cutting or sewing table, I saved these old sewing drawers from a scrap pile. They work great!

It keeps my chalk pencils, extra rotary cutters and my marking tape in one place. I also use them on my desk for office supplies.

I keep my rulers corralled  with a peg board that was meant for the garage for tools. I stole this one from my husband. LOL!

Since I have a dedicated sewing room, this solution works great for me. I have the peg board mounted on the wall next to my cutting table so all my rulers are within reach and then I can re-hang them when I’m done to keep the clutter off my mat.

Now, if you do not have a dedicated sewing room, you can still store your rulers efficiently by using a hanger made for ties or belts (below, left) and the binder rings you find in the office supply store.

Thread the binder ring through the hole in the top of the ruler and then hang it from the hanger. Once you have your hanger full of rulers, it’s easy to store in a closet out of the way.

Here’s another way to store bobbins if you don’t have prescription bottles or don’t like that idea. Recognize this?

It’s a toe separator used for pedicures. Pick up a few extra of these in the cosmetics area of your local store and you can use them this way:

As you can see by the photo on the right, they even stack nicely so they can be stored in a sewing drawer. The tow separator hugs the bobbins keeping the thread from unraveling and keeping them from rolling around in a drawer.

Here’s a third way you can store bobbins. If you like to keep the filled bobbin with the spool of thread it matches, grab some golf tees and do this:

I like this idea because I don’t have to hunt for the bobbin with the matching thread when I change the spool of thread I’m using for the top thread.

Storing spools of perle cotton has been a challenge at times. Most of the time, my cat will find the spool I’m working with and have a party. I came up with two solutions for taming my perle cotton spools. Once of them might work for you.

First up, I found this pencil box that the perle cotton spools fit into perfectly for travel stitching.

There’s also room for a small scissors, a magnet holding extra needles and my thread conditioner. And… I can draw the thread out from the space between the box and cover when its closed so there’s protection from cat shenanigans.

If I am not traveling but still want to protect the spool from cat antics, I came up with this little up-cycling idea. Have you seen these little plastic containers in the food saver aisle in the store? I use these to house a spool of perle cotton. I poke a hole in the top and am able to pull out the amount of thread I want.

So that’s it for my interesting storage ideas. Next week, I will post about unusual items that have become some of my favorite tools while working on a project.

Share your ideas with me in the comments. I’m thinking we all might learn something new from each other! Until next week…

Happy Quilting!
Deanne