Needlework – making the most of your stash

As I was picking up seed beads out of the carpet last evening (my husband offered to get the shop vac, but I was concerned it would damage the beads), I was thinking of how I didn’t want to spend craft budget to replace an item in my stash instead of being able to buy things to increase my stash. A vial of beads isn’t of such cost that replacing them would put me on the street, but it is the principle of the thing.

How do you go about making the most of your stash, getting as much for your money as possible? One way, if you like to stitch a variety of things which use many different colors, is to “kit” your projects yourself, instead of buying a pre-packaged kit. Not only is the cost often a bit less (unless you choose higher quality products, such as fabric, than the kits contain), but some of your supplies won’t be used entirely and can be used for others.

As a point of comparison, Teresa Wentzler’s Egyptian Sampler. Kit cost: approx $30US. Kitting it myself cost: approx $30US. The difference? The purchased kit will have very little leftover floss. By kitting it myself, I will have quite a few partial skeins left over which I can use in other projects.

You can buy the kit online (Willows Place carries it for $29.99 and Stitchability carries it for £34.95), and possibly in your local store. Buying the kit means you have the chart, the cloth, floss in quantities to complete the pattern (and probably not much left over), specialty bits such as beads or metallic threads, needles, and instructions. It’s possible you will have some extra beads, and you will certainly have a needle (unless you break it). But when you’ve finished your project, for all intents and purposes, you will have a finished piece, and a chart.

If you kit this project yourself, prices of course will vary depending on where you live. The first thing you’ll need is the chart. I found it locally for around $7.00. Stitcher’s Closet carries it for $6.95.

Once you have the chart, you can read it to determine what supplies you need to purchase. It will tell you the finished size of the design area on various counts of cloth, and it will give you a floss and embellishments list. Sometimes a chart for a large project will tell you how many skeins of each color of floss it takes to complete the project. I was able to find a large enough piece of cloth for the project for between $3-$7. (I forget the exact amount, but know it was less than $7). This brings my total so far to approximately $14.00.

I didn’t need needles, because I already have quite a lot of them. A packet of needles, which can be used indefinitely, is only a couple of dollars though, and can be considered a part of your sewing kit, rather than a single project. Frames, hoops and needlework stands can also be considered part of your sewing kit, and not linked to a single project. These are purchases which can be initially expensive, but with adequate care they will last for years.

Now we’re to the floss. How much floss do you need? My chart for Egyptian Sampler did not tell me this, so I started with the basic one skein of each color listed. I should have looked at the skeins of floss I already owned, whether because I wanted to have certain colors on hand or because I had left-over skeins from previous projects, and ticked off ones I had on the floss list on my chart. But I bought my floss at the same time I bought my chart, so I just bought one of everything. The cost was around $15 at $.29 per skein. This means my project cost at this point is about $30. Which is comparable to the price of the kit. I know, however, that when I finish stitching Egyptian Sampler, that I will have quite a bit of floss left for many of the colors the chart requires. Those skeins can then be used on future projects, which means the actual cost for the small portion of the skein used on Egyptian Sampler is much lower. Something very helpful for people stitching Teresa Wentzler charts is the Teresa Wentzler Bulletin Board. Under the Stitch-alongs section, you can find individual forums for the different charts, and in most of them you will find a thread on the amount of floss needed, and which colors you will need 2 or more skeins to complete the project. I found this information for Egyptian Sampler, and purchased the additional skeins so I would have them on hand; but you could just as easily wait until your skein was nearly out to buy another one.

If you live where the shops have sales, one way to stretch your stash budget is to buy fabrics in large pieces, or skeins of floss colors you don’t have yet, when they are on discount. Using small beads, trinkets and charms that are the right scale for the piece, and are pretty, also doesn’t have to be expensive. Often a designer will specify a certain brand, but you can simply match the colors with another brand if you want to save a little money (or if the brand indicated simply isn’t available). You could also buy a bulk package of assorted beads, if you have the patience to sort through them for specific colors. (I don’t. I much prefer my colors to be unmixed.)

There are some designers whose charts call for expensive (and beautiful) silks or hand overdyed floss. You will still save money over time by buying skeins if you stitch a lot of designs, even with silks. Or, if the kits and silks are too spendy for what you can pay at the time, you can convert the floss list to DMC or Anchor flosses.

Having a lot of skeins of floss or packets of beads laying around can get disorganized, which leads to duplicate purchases or ruined bits of stash. It is worth the investment to put together a storage system to contain your skeins of floss and various embellishments. For floss, people use plastic baggies, cardboard or plastic bobbins, and the Stitch Bow device. There are rings, boxes and binders in which to contain all these products. You can find them in your craft shop and online. If you don’t want to, or can’t afford to, buy the special-made organizers, you can make your own. I don’t know if you could easily make a substitute for a Stitch Bow, since I’ve never owned one. But a box of sandwich baggies will work in place of floss baggies (at least one plastic bag company makes a half-sandwich bag size called a “snack bag” that would be closer to the floss bag size). You only need a pair of shears and thin strong cardboard or plastic to cut bobbins. I have made my own bobbins in the past, but prefer to buy the plastic ones because then the bobbin size and shape is uniform, and there aren’t rough edges to snag my floss on. Beads and other small embellishments can be kept in baggies or small lidded containers, and stored in larger boxes.

The most important thing about your storage system is that it make sense to you. The next most important thing is that it allow you to easily determine what supplies you own, so that you will be able to note what you need to purchase new for a particular project. It is very common amongst we needlework addicts to discover we have 8 skeins of black floss, for instance. (I only actually have 5).