Inexpensive shuttle storage

While cleaning my sewing room today, I found this gourd tatting shuttle that I thought I had lost. It was safely tucked away in a box of thread.

I love the artwork, something I have no talent for!

I also found my Zoom Loom! The Zoom Loom makes 4" squares, and it has a couple of features that I really like. First the wide plastic base makes it easy to hold. Second, there is a slit in the plastic to hold the yarn when beginning the warping process. I like having the slit, because I don't have to take out a slip knot when I finish weaving. It makes it much easier to hide the ends.

Last year I purchased this box on Amazon. It's meant to hold art chalk. I removed the dividers and the  spongy liner, and then I lined the drawers with blue felt.

The drawers are very shallow, so the shuttles tend to catch a little if I don't pull the drawers out slowly, keeping them level.

I could store many more shuttles in these drawers if I removed the shuttles from the packaging.

However, I wanted to keep them in the packages in case the shuttles become collectible! ;-)

In case you didn't count the Emsy Jane shuttles, there were 21. Yes, there are more shuttles to come!

I am prepared!

Dave bought this beautiful black cabinet for me for Christmas, specifically for storing shuttles!

I'm still in the middle of reorganizing my sewing room. I'm afraid it's going to take a while. I get a bit overwhelmed as I look at the supplies I have.

As I feared, I have way too many shuttles...

Was I afraid that Handy Hands would run out of Aerlit shuttles?

How many small Clover shuttles does one tatter need?

...or large Clover shuttles for that matter!

What's really scary is that I've only begun working on this room, and I have more supplies upstairs! I hope to have some pretty pictures of an organized space in the next week or two.

I did manage to find time for a little bit of tatting today. One thing I learned from working on my Jan Stawasz Masterpiece last year is that it really doesn't matter how much I tat in one day. What does matter is how much I enjoy the time spent tatting!

I hope you enjoy your tatting time today!

Shuttle storage

How do you store your shuttles? These are my two shuttle storage boxes. The top one was a birthday present from my sister Janet. She drove down to visit me last night, and we went antiquing today. Janet found a pretty little green vase and a blue and white jar at the first antique store. At the second one, we found this nine drawer chest. All we had to do was buy some felt (blue... my favorite color!) to line the drawers and load it up! The tall case clock in the corner was my 50th birthday present from my parents. The table was my Grandmother Jones's dining room table. I remember when I was little that she and Grandpa Vin would sit on either side of the table without raising either of the dropped leaves. The leaves were only raised if there was company and they needed room for people to sit at the table. Isn't that a funny thing to remember?

The bottom picture is the shuttle storage that my dad made for me for Christmas two and half years ago. Mom and Dad had been up to visit in the summer, and I was showing them my shuttle collection, which was stored in little boxes here and there around the house. Dad had an idea of what he wanted to make, and when we visited them at Christmas I had a wonderful surprise! The top box has a glass cover so that shuttles can be displayed. I change the display around every once in a while. There are five boxes all together, and Dad inlaid little beads to number the boxes one through five. Mom lined each of the boxes, or I guess you could call them trays, with dark green felt... very elegant! I feel lucky to own such a beautiful display piece designed and made by my dad!