How to organize needlepoint threads

Keep the label with the thread

A shop's advice is to hang on to thread labels so you can find the exact color and dye lot again.

One thread maker says the dye lots of one of its silks are very stable but still recommends, for silk, wool or cotton alike, ordering enough of each color for the whole project so that it all comes from one lot. It also says to save the paper wrapper when you open a skein.

So:

• Buy all the thread for a project at once. The thread guide says why: dye lots differ. It also has a section on how much to buy.
• Keep the wrapper, tag or card with the thread, or write the maker, color and dye lot on whatever holds it.
• Label a thread you have taken off its card or out of its wrapper straight away. One designer suggests small hang tags, and points out that this also saves you from picking up the wrong one of two near-identical shades in poor light.

Makers name colors differently: some use a name and a number, some a number alone. A teacher's advice is to pick one way of labeling each thread line and stay with it.

Sorting a stash

A shop, a teacher and a designer between them suggest three ways to sort. Pick the one that matches how you look for thread.

• By color family. All the blues together, whatever the thread.
• By type. All the silk together, all the wool, all the metallics. One designer keeps leftovers this way, a pouch for each kind.
• By project. Everything for one canvas in one container. This suits anyone who buys a canvas with its threads already chosen.

What to keep it in

• Small zip bags, one skein or card to a bag. They stop strands tangling and threads unwinding from their cards, and the bag takes a label. Bags can be threaded on a ring, grouped by project.
• Clear bins or clear drawer units for the bags, so you can see what you have.
• Bobbins or thread cards, labeled. A shop suggests them alongside small bags. Wound thread can take a crease: see the paragraph below this list.
• Swatch cards. Tape a short length of each thread to a card and write its name or number beside it. Kept in a binder, the cards let you choose colors without opening every bag.

Thread kept wound on a card or bobbin can take a crease. A needlepoint teacher notes creases in one twisted rayon thread as it comes off its maker's card. Stitchers writing under an embroidery teacher's article report kinks in cotton floss kept on bobbins: some say the kinks do not show once stitched, and some stopped winding because of them. An author of embroidery books says a thread bobbin leaves a row of small creases in silk ribbon wound around it. No thread has to be wound onto a bobbin: it can stay in its skein, or on the card or spool it came on, in a bag of its own. One thread maker's spools of silk and of metallic braid hold the unused thread: a cap snaps shut over it, or the thread locks in a groove at the top of the spool.

The same maker says to keep rubber bands away from thread, and never to wrap one around a metallic thread that contains silver: the sulfur in the rubber tarnishes it.

If a thread comes loose from its skein, wind it back into a skein before you put it away. One designer does this with every kind of thread.

Keeping a project's threads together

Keep the canvas, its threads, the needles and the instructions in one bag or basket. A clear pouch lets you see which project is which. Label it with the project's name or a picture of the canvas if you have several going.

That is advice for a project being worked. For embroidery that is put away, a guild handbook says to wrap each piece in acid-free tissue paper and keep it where air can circulate, not in a plastic bag or bin. So once a canvas is stitched and put away to wait for a finisher or a frame, take it out of its plastic pouch and wrap it that way, in the tissue that How to clean needlepoint names. That guide also covers storing a finished piece, flat or rolled and not folded.

The handbook's advice is for stitched work. For thread, a needlepoint teacher's page on rayon threads says to store them in plastic bags, which keep them clean and undamaged.

See tools and supplies for what else goes in the bag.

Light, dust and damp

A guild handbook warns that many threads are sensitive to light and may fade, or even break down, in sunlight or under fluorescent light. A textile museum's guidance on caring for textiles says the same of light, and adds that heat and humidity speed up deterioration and invite insects, mold and mildew, and that dust is abrasive.

The museum's advice for storing textiles is a room that is cool and dry and can be darkened. It says to avoid attics and basements, which usually have the widest swings of temperature and damp, and not to store things directly on the floor. If you use wooden drawers, it says to line them with acid-free paper, because wood gives off acid.

The museum notes that most people make do with closets and cupboards for storage. Keep thread in closed boxes or drawers, or in a closet or cupboard, not on open display by a sunny window. Clear bins and clear drawer units do their job inside a closet or cupboard.

Leftover lengths

Dye lots differ. Before you finish a background with a leftover, check that the dye lot on its label is the one the background was begun with.

• Wind each leftover into a small skein and label it.
• Keep leftovers together, sorted by type of thread.
• Use older thread first, once it passes the checks under "Is old thread still good?" below. One teacher suggests setting it aside in a container of its own and planning projects around it.
• Give away what you will not use. The same teacher suggests a school or a seniors' center, or a swap with other stitchers.

Is old thread still good?

Age affects thread, and badly stored thread ages faster. An embroidery teacher lists the signs: it feels stiff where it should be supple, it has discolored, it has brittle spots, or it feels thinner than the same thread new. In use it shreds, falls apart sooner than it should, or keeps breaking at the eye of the needle. She adds that the decay does not always show to the eye, and she would not put thread that has been stored haphazardly for decades into a piece meant to last.

A needlepoint teacher, answering a reader, says thread kept cool, dry and away from light will be in much better shape, and gives a simple test: cut a length and tug it. If it does not break, that is a good sign. She would also test the thread for colorfastness, above all if the finished piece will be wet blocked. How to block needlepoint gives a water and white cloth test.