Talk Back Thursday

Thank you so much to Lady Jenn, Mamafitz, Claire S., Stitchywitch, Lois K., Lori, Gwen, Alison, Cindy, Patsijean, Mary, Julia, CarlaF, Rosa-Draconum, Shannon, Summerset, Elaina, Sarah, Lisa Laree, Faye, Karin and Becky for talking back to my confession last Friday!

I confessed that I unwind any partially filled bobbin at the end of each project and throw the leftover thread away, and asked what other people do in this situation. Man, am I flying solo on this one! ;)

ALL 22 people who responded save those bobbins and use the thread for a variety of purposes, including:

• hand sewing,
• mending,
• machine basting,
• muslin assembly,
• stay-stitching,
• testing decorative stitches,
• piecing quilt squares,
• tailor tacks,
• zigzagging over cut edges and
• gathering threads.

Some people agreed that they periodically have to empty one when they run out of available empty bobbins – and then they either empty the one with the least thread or the one with the least usable thread color. But no one automatically empties them as soon as a project is complete.

When it comes time to use up that leftover thread on your machine, Mamafitz and Cindy both pointed out that you can use a bobbin on the top of the machine too, instead of a spool of thread.

A couple of people mentioned trying to gauge projects and put “just enough” thread on the bobbin; although many are happy to have full bobbins of certain staple colors, such as black, white, brown, grey, navy, red, etc.

Several people mentioned the storage containers that they use, with the most unusual one being Carla F’s “Jammers Kids Car Garage Case” (an idea she got from Carolyn of Diary of a Sewing Fanatic) – apparently it’s the perfect size to keep her partially filled bobbins and matching thread spools stored together.

Cindy and Lisa Laree both recommended buying clear tubing at a hardware store and cutting individual covers for each bobbin (you need to slit the tube so that you can open it up to wrap it around the bobbin). You can see a picture on Lisa Laree’s blog, here.

Okay, okay, I’m convinced! I went out over the weekend and bought another 10 pack of bobbins and a bobbin holder (of the type pictured above) – from now on, I will make good use of those leftover bits of thread! :)

Thanks again to everyone who commented! :)