#thread stash

So mostly i am super good at consolidating and making stuff fit well in my very limited space. for instance! I have a lot of thread, which i use all the time, but it is on spools of all different sizes. I could stick it all in one box, which would be the most space efficient, but i need to access any of the individual spools at any time, so digging through a big box of spools is not ideal.

So I keep some of my thread in very satisfying clear spindle boxes and the rest in less satisfying flat boxes. I just want them all to be the same. So I bought some wooden spools off etsy (from theboringcraftshop, they were great btw) to re-wind some of the misfit spools to fit in the spindle boxes with the others (i had a bunch of empty spindle-spots for spools)

(not pictured: the new spools) I bent a bit of coathanger wire into a double axel for the spools (so that i could wind them without messing with the twist of the fibers--HEADS UP this technique won’t work if you sew on a machine, because your tensioning will be way off--though i think a machine has a bobbin winder built in so this would all be unnneccessary anyway, nvmd)

i was very proud of my little winding setup but after a few spools i realized it was unnecessary; it works just as well held in the hand and allowed to roll on the table:

it doesn’t really end up saving me much space (the wooden spools don’t hold as much as the old spools, which i knew--i was just going to re-wind the smallest/most used-up spools, but then i had more spindle space and more spools...) so i tried some of the bigger spools of thread. don’t recommend, the above spool took 5 wooden spools to re-wind it all. :( I was hoping to get rid of one of those flat boxes of mixed thread, and as you can see below, i ALMOST made it, but not quite!)

i started with two flat boxes and ended with two flat boxes. boo. BUT, one of them is so close..... and see all the empty spools i threw out at the bottom!

It was a fun thing to do while paying attention to other stuff. Mostly I watched Dr Who.

(the rest of this is Dr Who nattering.)

i’ve been thinking a lot about genesis of the daleks, so i just re watched it. the whole internal revolution bit hits so hard: “this was supposed to be a bloodless revolution”; and the kaled “revolutionaries” giving their opponent (Davros) a platform for his views as part of their takeover, which resulted in Davros being able to stall and subvert the proceedings until his daleks could attack. It really brings home that negotiations only work if both sides are negotiating in good faith, and giving your opponent a way to spread his ideas is not necessarily a matter of fairness. This is a hard concept for me but fairness only works if both sides agree on the same concept of fairness and are equally invested in acheiving it. And a commitment to nonviolence is a privilege not always available to people. if the other side is trying to annihilate you you can’t give them the benefit of the doubt or the chance to win people over to their side.

I wish we could trust people to be openiminded and interested in sharing a variety of views to try and find the best solution. But If a group sees another group as less than human then where can you go from there? They are just wrong and will hurt people if they gain/keep power. No negotiation is possible.

This was a really hard lesson for me to learn.