Before I get into the continuing saga of organizing, I first need to share a great blog posting by Stacey over at Crossed Stitches. She shared a wonderful tutorial on the best method for washing your finished pieces. Give her some love! You WILL love the little reasons why she does what she does when she does what she does.
It's been awhile since I updated you on things here at Nerd Central Command, but really, not much has happened until recently....because my daughter is OBSERVANT of things like SALE signs, signs that specify wonderful news such as 3 for .99 I went crazy.....
You just KNOW I'm talking about floss here. So I made the Executive Decision to get the last of the flosses I needed for my floss box do-over and HOLY COW that's a lot of floss! I also have the longest receipt ever and saved a grand total of $55.39.
Yes, 230 skeins...ohhh yes. If you are new to my blog, I have been replacing my floss for awhile, doing half a box or a whole box at a time which is terribly expensive and time consuming if not planned properly...seriously...if you are going to replace every skein in your floss boxes that are 30 years old like I did...plan accordingly, take baby steps and make sure you have COUPONS to go with sale days!
Drum rollllll please...here is the resplendent end result of all that expense and effort.....
We have ALL of the regular 6 ply DMC colors, Variations (both 6ply and pearl), Light Effects, and the last section to complete are the variegated.
I'm not in a hurry to complete the variegated as that will take some research to make sure I have all of them as some are seasonal or "collectors editions". The Variations have that same issue as well, but I'm pretty sure I have most, if not all of those.
I was worried about whether or not I have used every single color I owned prior to the start of this project and it turns out that I have, at one time or another, used a bit of every single color. This was proven to me as I went through and replaced them.
My bag of old junk, which really isn't junk. I thought about using it for those one color samplers and have since expanded my mind to include making decorative borders and trying out some of my own hand overdyed...I have the three Dylon dyes: Black, Green and Pink. More research is needed on how best to make that happen (I need more latex gloves too and maybe some red dye and some purple dye and yellow and orange and....).
This way I get to learn something new AND nothing goes to waste.
What is next now that this is finished? I'm going back and forth on whether or not I should start collecting other threads like Caron, Weeks Dye Works, Dinky Dyes, The Gentle Art (Simply Shaker and Sampler Threads) and so on. This is where things get seriously spendy. Fortunately, it's just a thought and I have 123 Stitch.
Now you see what happens when you clean out those old totes, boxes, bags, suitcases and sacks of crap you have stuffed all over the place? That's what started it! Turns out I had all but one color of the Satin, all of the Pearl, a slew of the metallics....I was shocked at what I had!
Fear not, the work here is not yet done. It's time I got serious about furnishing this NCC properly. The next step. I'm worn out just thinking about it! For now it's functional and I'm pretty pleased with what I have done.
And with that...my mind is racing towards more fun ideas....stop me now!
Until next time...Keep on Stitchin'
Look at all that wonderful floss, I have a tendency to buy 5 or 10 everytime I'm in a store that sells it, so it's going to take me a loooooooong time, but it's fun.
ReplyDeleteThat is a far more manageable amount than what I did...of course you are a far more reasonable person than I am!
DeleteWow! I wonder if I'll be doing that in a few years. It was only last year that I was able to get all the DMC colors (I'm still missing about 5, but they don't count). I don't much care for their satin thread, but I do want to get all the colors in the DMC perl cotton.
ReplyDeleteIt's so pretty! I use the pearl (sp?) perle (?) cotton to crochet motifs and have only once used it on an actual cross stitch project ha ha! For the regular 6 ply and the Variations, I use those ALL OF THE TIME so they are certainly well worth the expense. The only reason I re-did my flosses was due to them being 30 years old and the colors on half of them are "different" and they way DMC dyes the floss now is different. And the number stickers look super awesome too :D
DeleteNow that was a sale worth it. Wahh, look at all your floss stored neatly. There's something about seeing all the floss arranged that just sends me on mega happy. I drool and everything. It's not healthy!
ReplyDeletehahaha! It IS healthy! Everything in it's place can be very therapeutic for the A-types or OCD's in general :D
DeleteThat floss is so pretty! Makes me really excited for when I have my full collection. And reminds me that I still have some more bobbinating to do :D
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, as much as I love all the hand dyed/overdyed flosses out there, my vote is against trying to collect them all, unless you have one specific brand you use all the time (like, even in patterns that don't call for it). Otherwise, it's just so very unlikely that you will ever need all the colours, and they are a bit to expensive for just that! Also, when you do need them for a project, and you need more than one skein, you will want to buy them together anyway, because from what I heard, dye lots are much more important for those threads than for DMC, if that makes any sense...
That is a great point! Thinking over your comment there I believe I use Weeks Dye Works and The Gentle Art the very most, and have a bunch of it kitted with the smalls I have awaiting my attentions :D That is a great way to think about it THANK YOU!
DeleteI was wondering why you are replacing all your threads too! It's just too expensive in the UK to do that. It's taken me 25 years to get every plain DMC colour as it is. If I buy a new one then I check to see if it is very different to the old one but usually it's fine.
ReplyDeleteIt was a horrible realization to find that my OLD color didn't match the new one so I compared a few before going hogwild on this project...and it was very apparent that with all the traveling, going from hot to cold to hot to cold, and with DMC changing it's dye process years ago, the colors are slightly off...OCD me has to have them look and be perfect ha ha!
DeleteSo many skeins of floss to bobbinate! Well done on getting them all wound and ready, the boxes look wonderfully new now :D and so much discount... *faint*
ReplyDeleteIt IS amazing! I'm surprised I was able to get it done so quickly. Very happy with it and now I need to decide what flosses I should "collect" next year :D
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