Clothes Clips, Styrofoam, Clipboard

Yes, you're reading it right, clothes clips.  And what do clothes clips have to do with stitching?

I don't use hoops, scroll frames or lap stands.  I just stitch in hand and here's how I do it:

With this way of stitching, I can't do without these:

Mini wooden clips that I bought from the bookstore

And when I found these at the supermarket, I almost jump with joy.  Because it's so hard to find these nowadays.  All I see are those plastic clothes clips which I used before but they slip from the fabric.

Regular-sized wooden clips

I laughed when I saw in the label "Strong Lumber Clip" because the words "strong" and "lumber" is, for me, synonymous to muscles and masculine, so much the opposite of "cross stitch" which brings to mind the word "feminine" and "slender or nurturing hands".  Sorry for the babble :D

Now what about the styrofoam?... 

I use plenty of needles when I cross stitch because I don't like the process of re-threading a needle everytime I change colors.  And before, I just stick the needle to the bobbin like this:

Then I saw in the forums that some people use this Pako Needle Organizer 

and they said that it's a big help specially when you're dealing with confetti stitches.  So, I thought that I will need it when I start doing my HAED (Heaven And Earth) and Golden Kite patterns.  But everybody knows how much colors a HAED or Golden Kite chart requires.  So, if I will buy this Pako organizer, I would probably need two.  And it cost around $20 each.  So an idea came to my mind.  Instead, I bought this, again, from the book store:

Styrofoam, 1 inch thick, around $.50

And these are my needle organizers that I cut from it:

Needle organizer for Homebound

Morning Lake needle organizer

I just taped to the styrofoam the symbols page and voila, instant needle organizer.  So there, I was able to save around $40 or more.  And there's still more to use for future projects.

And last but not the least...another thing that I can't stitch without - my clipboard!

I'm so happy when I found this at the Japanese store.  I like that it is bigger than the average clipboard that you can buy from the book stores.  Its size is:  15 inches x 11.5 inches.

This is all for now.  Thanks for dropping by and happy stitching weekend everyone!