Crafted With Zeal

Something completely different for this week. Instead of Inkscape, we’re talking about… Spreadsheets. Not for finances, but rather for making an inventory of our embroidery thread. I like to call them Threadsheets and I find them to be a great way to know just what you have with a single glance.

I’m a big fan of digital patterns and motif collections over kits so that means I buy all of my thread separately. I need to be able to easily know exactly what I have at any time so that I don’t buy too many duplicates. This also helps when I’m designing and want to know what colors I have to work with. So let’s just take a quick overview of what a Threadsheet consists of –

You can click this image for a larger size version so you can take in all of the details. I organize my threads by the number but you could also do it by color if you found that to be a better fit for you. Those with grey backgrounds are particularly light colors which are hard to read on a white background.

Now, I only use DMC at the moment (even if I look at TheadworX with a great deal of drooling), but if you used threads from several different companies, you could easily make more sheets to organize those as well. The main reason I like this method is that it is easy and flexible. True, it requires a bit of work upfront to enter all of the numbers depending upon the size of your stash, but once it is set up it is simple to maintain.

And that’s why I’m giving away a blank Threadsheet file to get you started. All you have to do is enter the numbers of your DMC thread – it will automatically count how many you have and even give you an idea of what percentage of the 500 colors available you have. You will have to color the numbers yourself though.

Blank Threadsheet for Microsoft Excel

Blank Threadsheet for Open Office

I would love to hear some feedback about this idea – did you find it useful? Do you think it could be expanded or streamlined? Please, let me know!