A few years ago I was looking for a way to store my ever expanding thread collection, and the bobbins. Some of the colors were so close to each other that at night I couldn't tell which bobbin matched which spool. And other times I wound a bobbin only to discover I already had a bobbin with that color. I wanted a way to store the two together so they were together, with no confusion. None of the thread racks I found had dowels long enough to hold both the spool and the bobbin, so I asked my husband to make me a thread rack. And he did! Ran out of dowels and meant to get more, but life happens and I didn't have that much thread. Yet. Soooo, I started using it and it was awesome! But, clumsy me, I've broken off quite a few of the dowels cuz we never did manage to get it hung up on the wall. ( Broke 2 more while doing this post.) Then I discovered this awesome trick of using a clear tubing to keep the bobbin thread from coming undone. And since the tubing is clear, it's easy to see what color the thread is! I went to the Home Depot and found some clear tubing slightly larger than the shank of the bobbin. It took some trial and error to cut it the right width, but I've been loving it ever since! It's now time to find another storage solution, since I have more thread than attached dowels and no wall space to hang my thread rack up. I found an awesome solution on Pinterest a few weeks ago and I think it's going to work really well. I picked up some golf tees at Walmart the other night. And then after much searching, decided to use the lids to my pattern boxes until I can find something better, and ta-da! Now I can just grab the spool with attached bobbin and I'm good to go. =)