Winding thread onto bobbins and finding an easy storage solution for them became a necessary task when I got a new sewing machine that also had an embroidery function. The sewing machine I use is not overly expensive, but for the small purchase price (under $400) it is a real work horse. I have the Brother SE400 Sewing and Embroidery Machine. I can use it to sew a variety of projects on a wide range of materials, and even more fun, I can use the Embroidery functions to create beautiful custom embroidery designs. For the beginner it does simple work like adding a name or initials to personalize an item without much effort. I look forward to showing off several sewing tips and techniques through the Craft Curiosity on YouTube channel.
Because this machine has an embroidery feature, I purchased a beautiful set of embroidery threads in 64 colors. When you embroider with these colors it is typical to use a bobbin thread in white or black for the back of the work. In that instance, you would not need to wind the colored threads onto bobbins.
I found that the thread quality worked for many of my sewing projects and because I was using these colors for sewing I wanted to wind the bobbins with the matching thread. With such a range of colors it can be daunting to keep track of your threads if you store the bobbin separately, my desire was to store the thread spools and bobbins together. I purchased several bobbins and created a "pin" to pop into the top through both the spool and the bobbin to rest the bobbin on top of the spool. After considering many materials, I settled on bamboo skewers and wooden beads. I just found the right size beads so that it would be large enough to not fall through the spool or bobbin opening and also have a large enough hole that a bamboo skewer would fit snugly into that hole. I added a touch of wood glue to give this a bit of strength and keep everything together and quickly made a large supply of wood pins.
Last, but not least, I planned to store all of these bobbin and spool combos in a drawer and I did not want loose thread messing up the drawer and tangling with each other, so I put a small slit on the bottom edge of each spool, and I wrapped each bobbin with a ¼” cut of clear vinyl tubing by slicing several pieces of the tubing and making one cut to open the slice up. The vinyl tubing has just enough memory to stay wrapped around the bobbin thread and hold the loose end of the thread neatly.
