Saturday, January 7, 2012

Unruly Bobbin Tails

I have a problem with bobbin tails. They’re a tangled nightmare and there’s no telling how many times I’ve accidently caught the loose string of a bobbin and sent it flying halfway across a room. ~ This is generally followed by much cursing and mumbling ~

About a year back I thought I would outsmart my bobbins and get a cute little organizing caddie for them. Surely this would solve the problem.
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Nope! Now I just had organized chaos. No matter what I did the tails would come loose and tangle into a jumbled heap. So yesterday I went on an internet scavenger hunt to try and come up with a solution. That's when I came across this little gem.

Tame Your Bobbin Tails with Plastic Tubing. It was such an ingenious solution I ran to the hardware store right away.

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In the plumbing section you can find a roll of different sized clear plastic tubing. Even though the website said they used 7/8ths inch tubing, I had brought a few bobbins with me and deemed it to large, so I went with 5/8ths of an inch instead. It seemed to work out really well.

First things first, measure your bobbin height.
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It doesn’t have to be perfect. But you want it to fit snug. My bobbins were just shy of 1/4th of an inch.
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Next you’ll want to mark your tubes with a sharpie. I tried cutting a few of these without marks, but it’s not very easy to eyeball such a small increment. I’d recommend just taking the time to measure it all out. You can do a ton at once.

Now you’ll need to get some sharp scissors (But not your fabric sheers!) and cut along your indicated mark. As time went on and my hand started to get tired I found that it was a lot easier to cut out a chunk of tubing and slice it long ways first. Then I could flatten out the tube and only have to cut one ‘layer’ at a time. Plus it’ll save you the time of snipping the rings later.

If you decided not to cut the tube long ways first, you’ll  just need to snip each of the rings so that they can be easily adjusted over your bobbins.

And viola! You’re done!
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You may need to trim some of the rings a bit depending on how straight you made your cuts. ~ I was doing this at 2 a.m. so I had a lot of extra trimming to do . ~

Now you can keep your bobbins wherever you like without fear that the tails will end up horribly tangled and unmanageable. After finding three bobbins with the same color thread I’ve decided I’m going to start keeping mine with the spools.

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Do you have any good tips for organizing your sewing room?