Quite a few of my posts start out by me looking for information regarding something I’m working on. Today that would be annealing borosilicate glass. I’m in the midst of a project that is requiring extra extra large beads so I’m working with borosilicate. Yesterday I made a bead that’s over 2″ x 2″ and before I go to the next level, which will be beads that are about 4″ x 2″ and 3″ x 5″ I want to make sure I’ve got all the annealing temperatures right. I normally work with soft glass and I know all about annealing that kind of glass. Boro is something I don’t play with much. You should have see the flame I worked with…wait, isn’t that it in the picture? Anyway, I went over to Arrow Springs web site for some information. They are always a very safe place to go when you need to answer a glass question. Now, back to the torch.
Have you read?
How to Store Embroidery Needles
I have a complicated relationship with my embroidery needles. Which is a fancy way of saying I don’t really take care of my needles at all. Even though I know I have embroidery needles to use for cross stitch and sewing, needles that are certainly still in their packages, I can rarely find them when I need them.
So when I saw this post from Crewel Ghoul about how to store your embroidery needles, it hit close to home for me.
It doesn’t really say anything I didn’t already know, but it is good advice that might also serve as a reminder for you to take better care of your needles when you cross stitch or do other hand-sewing projects so that you’ll be able to find your needles again when you need them.
It would help me a lot if I had a dedicated place to keep needles I’m not using, including the needles that are still in their packages from when I bought them. You’d think I would keep them with my embroidery floss but apparently you would be mistaken about that.
Another good idea for me is to have a place to put needles I’ve been using when I am done with them. Because goodness knows I’m not going to put them back in the package. (Which may actually be a good thing because then I know which one I’ve been using and which ones are fresh. Not that I replace my needles regularly, but still.) I own pincushions but I don’t really use them for anything, which is silly.
Check out the post at Crewel Ghoul to see all the options available for storing your embroidery needles properly. I’d love to hear what you do, especially if you have a better system than I do (which, honestly, would be any system at all).
[Photo: Crewel Ghoul]