new favorite sewing notions

so i had several gift cards from my birthday, and i've been trying to think of what to buy. i finally settled on 2 sewing notions, but that barely made a dent. so i'll share what i picked, and maybe you can help suggest what else i need to own.

first up is the bobbinsaver! in my head i was imagining building some sort of wall hanging thing to store my thread spools and bobbins together. but i'm not too handy in the building things department. i can barely hang a nail on a wall. although i did semi-successfully put together 2 dressers and managed to hang up curtains. i received a power drill from dad awhile back and it is kinda fun, although intimidating. anyway building a thread storage thingy was one of those projects that i would just keep on the back burner forever and it would never actually get built. 

i have my thread in a glass display case from grandma see here and all the guttermann, which i use more frequently, in a cigar box that looks cool. but the bobbins just can't hang out in the cigar box. they go everywhere and start unwinding and it's just chaos. i can't have chaos, so the bobbinsaver came to my rescue. this thing is amazeballs! (funny how i'll type a word that i never really use in real life.) it's this rubbery doughnut shaped thing. your bobbins pop right in and out and the thread stays in place. it's pretty genius. love love love.

 

that's a photo of mine, with all my bobbins in place. i ordered it off amazon, just type in "bobbinsaver" and it should pull up a few results. the exact listing i used is no longer up. i paid all of $2 plus $4.99 shipping.


next thing - sewable swedish tracing paper. i've read it mentioned in multiple blog posts. i finally broke down and bought some. and it's awesome. light-years ahead of the parchment baking paper i've been using for tracing patterns and making adjustments. it feels almost like a lightweight interfacing, kinda cloth-like, and very easy to draw on. i have yet to actually sew on it, but i bet it works fine. all the photos i took were lame. it's a roll of paper, so i bet you can imagine it. again, i ordered from amazon, here's a link, but the price and vendor changes from time to time. i think i paid $10 plus shipping, and one roll is 10 yards long by 29 inches wide. the size is sooo much better than the parchment paper and it doesn't curl back up on you like crazy. so if you're tracing patterns (what? you don't trace your patterns! shock and horror!) you should try this stuff.


do you have a bobbinsaver or use sewable swedish tracing paper? or is there another sewing notion you swear by? and what else should i buy with these giftcards!?