For those of us who use bobbin work, there is always the quest for empty bobbins. For every color of thread I use, I need a bobbin with that color of thread.

So it’s no surprise when I get a new kind of machine, I usually buy 200 new bobbins for the machine.

Unfortunately, bobbins cost more. My Bernina 770 uses a $5 bobbin. They are pricy. But truly, like being too rich or too thin, there are never enough.

Thread is pricey too. It won’t go back on the spool. So you either use it up or pull it off the bobbin and waste it.

So when I went to do a run of minnows, I looked at my bobbin box and made a plan.

I didn’t want the fish to be in any way identical. That’s not the nature of nature. Nature is endlessly variable. So I decided on green fish and yellow fish, and planned to empty each yellow or green bobbin dark to light, top to bottom.

The fish I’d drawn had cross hatched details. I lined up my bobbin colors and made a progression of colors square by square, dark to light. I think I filled 4 bobbins for the whole batch. How many did I empty? The empty bobbin count at the end was 16.

Here’s the finished fish. Because I wasn’t micromanaging the colors, they clash a little and contrast not only in color but in tempurature. Which makes them shimmer a bit. Like fish.

My dad would have been pleased to make that catch. And I have enough empty bobbins to tackle the birds next.