These guys are the bane of my existence.

Well ok, they aren’t really that bad, but they are one of the things that make organizing my sewing area a real nightmare! First you have to try and figure out where you are going to store them, since they are so small sometimes they can get lost. I found these great little bobbin boxes and they work fairly well to keep them all in a single spot, except…

They are still a huge mess. The threads get tangled, you try and pull out only one but you also grab the thread of another and unwind that one until you have this huge mess that makes you want to just throw the whole container. And after you catch your breath from throwing the container you realize you’ve lost your bobbins.

Sigh.

So somewhere on the internet I found this idea to use those binder combs you find at an office supply store to hold my bobbins. It looked great in theory, and the idea had some merit, until I tried it for myself.

The comb is really quite flexible. Once I filled it completely with bobbins, it would bend and wobble and I had a little bit of a hard time getting them in and out without flinging another one somewhere in the room. Bummer.

So I decided to combine the two ideas of the box and the comb.

I cut them into mostly equal size pieces. I wanted them to be wide enough that the cut part would sit on the outside of the bobbin, so I cut about 1/2 way between the combs and it worked out perfectly. Trim if needed.

Then wrapped them around my bobbins.

Freaking genius! Now I can easily find my bobbins and they aren’t a huge mess!

I’ve noticed that a fuller bobbin will make the comb rings stretch out a bit more, so on the less full bobbins it might move around a bit. You might have to discard some of the rings after a while, but since you can buy a box of them so cheaply (or borrow them from work) then it shouldn’t be a big deal to make some more of them.

I think the size I used was 1/2″ combs, the original comb was one I had taken off of an old handbook from work so I’m not 100% sure of the size. I’ll be going to work tomorrow to see what size they have in the supply closet before I go and buy my own box.

It really makes an incredible difference!