Crossstitchforum - A FREE forum for Cross Stitchers

Can anyone advise on the practicality of using a needle organiser with threaded needles? I am currently working on an American railway train, which has 28 colours and so loads of frequent colour changes!! No big blocks of colour either. I have seen the Pako organiser and also a new one by Clover

http://www.stitchdirect.com/shopWebSite ... plu=CL0625

So any advice folks??

I had one, never used it and sold it on Ebay. I'm a one needle woman, sometimes 2 if I need to park a colour for a little bit but I tend to do that with my tapestry, not cross stitch. I'd just end up losing them or they would get mixed up.

But I've heard that a lot of people find them useful and quicker. I think it might work if you have the project out all the time, like a dedicated chair or room or something. I have to put my projects away to protect them from kids and animals.

Sorry Wendy, I'm not much help here!

i have a big magnet and I park my needles in a line according to the chart color list..
i don't have to do it often..as it does take lots of prep time..you have to have a needle for every color and thread them all before you can get started. it does keep all the time you are stitching for stitching..
but it does get tedious threading a ton of needles all at once..and I sometimes do get mixed up and unorgnanized..lol

I've got the Pako one, Wendy, but haven't used it yet. I bought it thinking it would be useful for large projects, but haven't actually stitched one yet! Having said that, I'm not getting rid of mine as I'm sure I will use it in the future.

Thanks girls for your input.
ConnieO .... you have made a good point about having to put things away. Although I don't have 'Small Fry' running around I do like to put things away at the end of a session, so that's one consideration. Thanks for that thought.

C_F ... a big magnet is an excellent idea except I don't have one of those either!

i got my magnet strip at the craft store..and then i glued it down to a small clipboard

i have the pako one and i love it! the kit i'm working on is the first one where i'm trying to do small sections at a time instead of doing all of one color before moving on to the next.... i didn't thread every single color for the whole kit, just the colors that i would be using in the section that i was working on, i'm doing one teddybear at a time.... it does take a little time to draw the symbols and to thread and organize the needles, but once it gets down to the stitching it's so easy and i look forward to doing the next color, makes it a lot more interesting to me... also i bought the travel pack made for the organizer so i can just zip it up with all my needles and put it away when i'm done stitching for the day.... hope this helped a bit....

Thanks happiegirl that really does help. I have been looking and thinking about one for ages. When I have a big project on the go I get frustrated when I seem to spend forever just re-threading my needle and never getting any sewing done.

Ta ever so again girls for your input

I've got the pako one that I use for projects with lots of colours, especially if they are very similar shades.

I had found that I was making a few silly mistakes from picking up little "left over" threads that were the wrong colour when I was re threading. I quite enjoy the prep now, and it's definately quicker and more rewarding than frogging!!

I just have a clear plastic shoe box with a lid that I keep mine in when I'm on another project, or company drops in and I need to put away safely.

ConnieO wrote:I had one, never used it and sold it on Ebay. I'm a one needle woman, sometimes 2 if I need to park a colour for a little bit but I tend to do that with my tapestry, not cross stitch. I'd just end up losing them or they would get mixed up.

Sorry for offtopic, but I need to ask! You do tapestry? WOW! Can you tell a little more, is it needlepoint or something looking like real tapestry?

Hi Oksana, tapestry is pretty much another name for needlepoint as I understand it, although I'd love to be able to do a 'real' medieval tapestry! Such detailed work! There's a picture of my work in progress (WIP) in the gallery under my name if you want to have a look.

I have that dome organizer but I could never figure out how it works. So I have never used it. I love both the Pako needle and Pako thread organizers. I just got a new system called "Annies Keepers" and she also has a needle organizer that holds 16 sections but you can really double it. then the threads slide in on one of her project slides. Really cool system.
http://www.annieskeepers.com" target="_blank

When I could stitch I used my Paco all of the time. Doubt whether you will remember but because I like to keep things looking tidy I bought a wooden box especially for my paco (it is in my gallery).

Rosemary

The last time this came up I showed my system which I find works well and the plastic bobbin containers aren't very expensive. I usually am only working on one project at a time and I HATE THREADING NEEDLES, so each color is threaded as I use it and stays threaded (unless I use it up of course) until the project is over. If I start working on more than one project it might be more difficult. I haven't decided if I would just keep separate bobbins of thread for each project or move them back and forth.



I keep the bobbins in order by thread number. If I am working only on a small section I might seperate out those colors. It looks cumbersome, but I find that it really is pretty simple.

Carole

Oksana wrote:

ConnieO wrote:I had one, never used it and sold it on Ebay. I'm a one needle woman, sometimes 2 if I need to park a colour for a little bit but I tend to do that with my tapestry, not cross stitch. I'd just end up losing them or they would get mixed up.

Sorry for offtopic, but I need to ask! You do tapestry? WOW! Can you tell a little more, is it needlepoint or something looking like real tapestry?

Oksana tapestry, especially creative tapestry is AWESOME 8} sorry to butt in but my first love is creative tapestry. Using a canvas (large open holes) is much quicker and easier on the eyes than aida but the most rewarding this is that a good creative tapestry takes on a real 3D effect, something you could never do with cross stitch.

I had a Pako needle organiser and really didn't get on with it - I felt that it took a long time to thread all the needles (I did them all at once, rather than just the colours I was using at the time) and then the threads all got tangled up together, so eventually I gave it to someone on here who got on with it really well!

I find my needle organiser invaluable when stitching large designs with lots of colours. I can just pick up a colour when needed and pop it back again.


Close up here http://www.morecambesands.com/.a/6a00d8 ... 970b-popup

A HAED generally requires uses 2, there are 4 in this picture because the Golden Kite design I was working on then used 200 colours.

I've just bought a pako from ebay, I thought it might help with the frequent colour changes on Starry Night with Tardis - and might save me time looking for 1 symbol out of the 108 on the chart! Sadly I have committed a lot of the corresponding colours and symbols to memory......

I absolutely would not be without my Pako organiser. It makes life soooo much easier with the large project I love to do.

I have to agree. I usually use my pako organiser on big projects. I started using it for my fairy where there were lots of colour changes and especially lots of confetti. It really was invaluable for them cause I can't get the hang of parking and the colours were all so similar it would have been a nightmare trying to remember the right colour.

I use the top row for threaded needles and leave the bottom row free and I put the symbol and the colour number in the boxes below each needle. It works really well for me

I havent set it up for my big WIP yet but I havent spent much time on stitching it so far. I probably will set it up soon though. it takes me maybe 15 minutes to thread all the needles up and get them written down