Take a peek into my sewing room: Embroidery storage

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Click the video player to view the tour of my sewing room. It may take a few minutes to load. For those of you with a dial-up connection, you can "view" the tour by reading my description below.
This is a series on sewing room organization and storage, complete with videos! Over the next few weeks, I'll share ideas for fabric stash organizing, thread storage and cataloging embroidery designs. Be sure to visit my blog every week or sign up for my newsletter for the lastest issue!
I'd love to hear the many ways you organize and store things in your sewing room, so leave a comment with your favorite sewing room ideas!
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When I first started stitching machine embroidery designs, I would purchase a design or card every so often and it was easy to keep track of where my designs were and which designs I had. As time went on, my stash of embroidery collections continued to grow. It soon became a problem of knowing what I had and since I didn't want to purchase duplicates, I had to come up with some method of cataloging my embroidery designs. Then I would know what I have, where they are and could easily get to them.

In my bookcase I keep all my embroidery cards and cds plus notebooks of thread charts. I also have a copy of every design from my cards and cds on my computer so I can easily get to them. My embroidery cards are stored in a plastic toolbox. What I have done is taken all the designs on each card and put them onto my computer. All the designs on each card are stored into folders on my computer. This makes them easy to access and send to my machine.

For example: If I want to stitch some paper dolls from this card, I would take the card, put it into my machine, upload the design from my machine to my computer, edit the design (editing designs in your computer software is much quicker than doing it on the machine) and send it back to the machine. With my designs already on my computer, I have eliminated a couple steps.

When embroidery machines first came out, the only way you could purchase embroidery design were on embroidery cards. You would insert that card in your machine and then you could access the embroidery designs. Technology has improved and so has machine embroidery and the software to use with it.

What the embroidery companies started doing is putting their embroidery designs on cds. They would package thread charts with the embroidery cds. With some machines you could connect the cd through a cd-rom reader into your machine. You could also insert the cd into your computer, open the designs in your software and send the designs to your machine.

Embroidery cds were a much easier alternative for me because I was taking all the designs off the cards and putting them onto my computer. With cds, it was much faster and easier to copy them to my computer.

I started taking the cd out of the jewel case or cd sleeve that it was in and storing them in a cd book. The reason for that is jewel cases take up much more space than a book of cds and the cds would sometime slip out of the sleeves that held them. Plus this kept my cds cleaner and easier to take out the cd, put it in my computer and return it to the cd book. They are also easy to take places if I need to.

I have several books of cds, organized by companies where I have purchased the designs from. One contains Great Notions embroidery cds. I have a misc. cd book which contains downloaded designs that I have put onto a cd and Sue Box designs. My third book of cds had my cd designs from Bernina and OESD.

I still have taken the designs from each cd and stored them onto my computer. When I am working on a project, I'll think of a design I have, but finding it could take quite a bit of time if I had to sort through all my embroidery cards and cds. But since I have all the designs on my computer, I can quickly click through folders of designs or do a computer search for the design I am looking for.

The newest kind of technology that embroidery design companies are using to store embroidery designs is a USB key or stick. You can put that key or stick directly into your sewing machine and open up the designs. You can also put it into your computer to bring up the design in your software and then send it to your machine. I store my USB keys in a drawer. I also catalog all the designs on my USB keys into folders on my computer.

The advantage with USB keys is that they are the latest technology, they are much smaller than cds, you can store a lot more on them and they are much more reliable than cards, cds or floppy disks ever were.

Many times you have the option of purchasing a USB key, cd, or card for design collections. If you have the ability to use a USB key, that is the best way to go. If not, go with a cd if you can use that with your software/machine and lastly choose the embroidery card.

Every machine is different and some machines will only take cards and you may not have software to open a cd or USB key to sent the designs to your machine. But if you have the ability to use a USB key or cd, that is the better choice and can be the less expensive one too. Embroidery cards are usually more expensive for companies to make rather than cds or USB keys.

Now that I've shown you where I keep my embroidery cards, cds and USB keys, let me show you where I keep my thread charts. As much as I love working on computers and am sitting in front of one almost 24 hours a day, it seems at times, I still like to have a printed thread chart so I can see the detail of the design.

Most often I will change the thread colors, so the thread color numbers mean nothing to me. I don't care what thread colors are on there; I'm going to change them. But I like to see the thread order and the design detail, so I want a printed sheet to take wherever I am working. With each collection that I get, I take my thread chart out and file them into notebooks with sheet protectors. I keep my notebooks of thread charts on the bottom shelf of this bookcase.

I have all my designs from my cards, cds and USB keys stored into notebooks by theme. One notebook contains florals, which has all the floral design collections in it. Animal design collections are in another. Baby and kids design fill a third notebook. One notebook contains Sue Box designs and designs that came on my machine. Another notebook contains lace and quilting designs. Christmas and holiday designs are filed in one notebook. Whimsical, cute, unrealistic design thread charts are stored in another. The last notebook I have is a misc. notebook where the collections that can't find a home elsewhere go.

I put all the thread charts into sheet protectors to protect the paper charts. My notebook is usually sitting next to my fabric, hoop and 505 spray adhesive. If I get any excess spray adhesive on my pages, I can simply clean off the sheet protector and my thread charts are still protected. I label the ends of the notebooks for the theme that is inside, store the notebooks in my bookcase and they are right there when I need them.

I store all my embroidery designs on my computer so they are easy to get to. I always have my backup copies on my embroidery cards, cds or USB sticks, but I like to have them all on my computer for easy access.

There are many ways to catagorize embroidery designs on your computer. You can group them into folders by the company your ordered them from, by design collection or by theme such as florals, animals, Christmas, etc. Everyone has their own favorite method, but the important thing is to keep the designs together in one place and store them in a way that is easiest for you to find them.

Let's zoom in on my computer and look inside my embroidery design folders. My designs are stored in a folder called My Embroidery Designs. Everything is grouped into folders to keep them organized. Don't just put your designs on your computer; organize them into folders so you know where they are and can find them.

Embroidery designs that I have created/edited/used to create a project such as the Beyond the Color Purple Quilt, Latte Quilt or MarJen for Error Quilt each have their own folder with their designs inside. I can further organize the designs so that the designs used in each block are in a folder under the project folder.

I also have a folder named, Embroidery Designs by Company. I have separate folders such as Embroidery.com, Sue Box Downloads, OESD Downloads and Amazing Designs. These are designs that I have purchased and downloaded from each company and they are stored that way. I don't have a huge collection under this folder, just a few designs here and there that I've bought online and downloaded.

I have a folder called Embroidery Cards that has the designs from each embroidery card in a separate folder. For example; the folder called, Mrs. Mouse's Sewing Treasures, has all the designs from the card in that folder. I can click on the design and open it in my software. Then I can do any editing that I need to do and send it to my machine to stitch it.

This is a much easier way for me to search through my designs than flipping through notebooks full of thread charts or looking at cards, cds or USB keys full of designs.

I always keep a backup copy of all the designs stored on my computer. If I took the designs from a card, cd or USB key, I already have a backup copy, but there are designs I have digitized, edited or grouped together for a project that I don't want to lose. If something happened to my computer, like my computer crashed, the files became corrupted or the files were accidently deleted (yes, it does happen!), you want to have a backup copy of those. Trust me; I know! :)

I used to store all my backup copies on cds, but since then technology has improved and the best thing you can store your embroidery designs onto is a USB key. You can get USB keys with various amounts of memory - 128 MB to 40 GB. You can store thousands of embroidery designs on USB keys. They are easy to stick into your computer and send the designs to them.

I use an external hard drive instead of a USB key to backup all my designs and my computer data. The external hard drive plugs into your computer via a USB cable. The computer recognizes the device and all you have to do is highlight the folder or files you want to send to the drive, right click and select Send To...then select the drive to send the files to.

The advantage of an external hard drive versus a USB key is that you have much more storage space. You can back up your entire computer if you needed to. The advantage of a USB key is that it is much smaller.

I really recommend that you back up your embroidery designs. You never know when something could happen to your computer and then those designs will be lost. Some companies will let you download the designs you have purchased again and some won't. But if your designs are backed up, you know you have a copy of them if something happens.

An advantage to a USB key or external hard drive is that you can switch designs from computer to computer if your sewing room is in another room where your Internet-connected computer is located. For example: Your office computer is connected to the Internet, but your sewing room is several rooms away. Download the design from the Internet to the computer, load onto the USB key/hard drive, plug it into your computer in your sewing room and open your design.

That's how I catalog my embroidery design and thread charts, where I store my backup copies and how I store my designs on my computer. There are many ways to store and organize embroidery designs and you will find you prefer one way over the other. This is what works well for me!

How do you store your embroidery designs and thread charts? What works well for you?