Cross stitch guide
Donating cross stitch supplies
Thread, fabric, hoops and kits you will never use are worth passing on. Three kinds of place take them: creative reuse centers, thrift and charity shops, and other stitchers. All of them want the same thing: supplies that are clean, sorted and ready to use.
What is worth passing on
Almost anything a stitcher could pick up and use:
- skeins and bobbins of floss, with their numbers
- uncut fabric, and offcuts big enough for a small design
- hoops, frames, needles and scissors in good order
- kits, unopened or barely started, with all their parts
What it must be is clean and usable. Places that take donations turn away cloth that is dirty, stained or mildewed, and anything broken. Tools that no longer work, such as scissors too blunt to cut, belong in the bin.
Where it can go
A creative reuse center. These are places that collect leftover materials and pass them on, through a store of their own or to community organizations. Craft supplies, fabric, yarn and sewing things are on their lists. Most publish what they accept and the days they receive donations. Check before you go.
A thrift or charity shop. A shop takes a bag or box of things in good enough condition to sell, and a kit or a part-worked piece can go in that bag.
Another stitcher. Give it to a friend who stitches, or to someone who wants to try. Stitchers also sell unwanted kits and supplies to one another, through online marketplaces and buy-and-sell groups.
Some reuse centers and charity shops also take donations by post.
How to sort it first
- Go through everything in one sitting, so you can see what you have.
- Keep like with like. Floss together, fabric together, tools together.
- Keep each kit whole. Put its chart, threads, fabric and needle back in one bag. A kit with a part missing is hard for anyone to use.
- Label what is not obvious. Write the count on a piece of fabric, and leave the number bands on skeins of floss. Organizing your floss shows ways to keep numbers with threads.
- Bag it clean and dry.
A piece you started and will not finish
You have more choices than the bin. Pass it on as it is, with everything that came with it, for someone else to complete. Or keep the part you finished: a small stitched area can be cut out, with a margin, and framed or made into an ornament. Small ways to finish cross stitch has ideas for small pieces.
Where to go next
If you are keeping some of it, what to do with leftover floss has uses for odd lengths, and putting together your own cross stitch kit lists what a kit needs, if you would rather make up your spare supplies as one.