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I have always tanized my project's floss in labelled sandwich bags, choosing this familiar method for my new pattern's 90 hues. But last night when I prepared to start actually stitching by separating the colours needed for the first area, I found myself drowning in a sea of ziplocks! So today I bought the plastic DMC bobbins and a plastic box meant to hold them. When I got home, I excitedly started to get wrapping by hand, never liking the winders.

Being a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my arts and crafts, I decided to wrap by hand wanting the floss to sit flat and neat and not all bulky like it does when it's been wound by a crank winder., I was very pleased with the result of my first bobbin.



See how purty?

But as I got on to my second one, I noticed how slow it was going, very slow, like only completing a few in over an hour. Yet that wasn't the worst problem. I began to have bad cramps in my hands and fingers, finding it terribly hard to hold the bobbin in one hand while wrapping the floss in the other. Being a type 1 diabetic with complications, and having had carpel tunnel surgery 10 years ago at the ripe old age of 20 probably doesn't help.

Now I have seen some gorgeous hand wound bobbins by Stitchers of all ages and types and was wondering if anyone has any tips on how to do beautiful and neat bobbin wrapping without painful fingers. Is there some trick that I'm missing on how to hold it instead of just pinching one end between my thumb and pointer?
Or do I just have to give up my desire to have tidy thread holders?

I like mine wound neatly too but I do use a winder. The bobbin goes into the winder and you just have to guide the thread with your other hand. I have arthritis in my fingers and don't have any trouble doing it this way.

I don't drown in bags no matter how many the project requires. A large ring keeps them all in order and ready for use.

I keep mine as full skiens in a box sort what i need for a project and hang on a bar with cuphooks
But if you order from here they come ready wound

http://www.enchanted-needle.co.uk/dmc-threads-24-c.asp" target="_blank

Allyn wrote:I don't drown in bags no matter how many the project requires. A large ring keeps them all in order and ready for use.

Same here!bobbin winding is why i stipped using bobbins that and having to move them all to add a new color into the set.

Athalie wrote:I like mine wound neatly too but I do use a winder. The bobbin goes into the winder and you just have to guide the thread with your other hand. I have arthritis in my fingers and don't have any trouble doing it this way.

I generally use a winder. For me it is very easy to guide the thread as Athalie stated.

I wound my last batch by hand as my dgd was helping and we were having a good time.

I bobbinate, and at first I also wanted the bobbins laying nice and flat. but that is so time consuming and I just wind it now keeping it more or less even. I wind all the floss for a HAED in just a couple hours, that counts labling them also. my bobbins arent perfect, but they are not tangled and thats the whole point of bobbins, in my opinion anyway

I'm like you - I like my bobbins all nice and neat and flat - because if they are I can fit 7 bobbins in each section of my box and only need 4 boxes. If they're not as flat, I can only get 5 ot 6 in each section and would have to go up a box.

I found that the only way to deal with it was to do a few a day. Whenever I sat down to stitch, I'd wind one or two bobbins and then start stitching. Or if I was watching TV that was too engrossing to stitch at the same time, I'd wind a couple of bobbins. I'm redicoulously slow at winding bobbins, and it took me about a week to wind the 40 or so I bought over the holidays, but because I did just a few in a sitting it didn't feel like such a huge chore.

Stitchbows, nice, neat, flat, no winding, easy to store, easy to find.

And best of all, no kinks at the end. I can't stand the kinks that bobbin cards leave.