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Comment by Bullion Rose on November 30, 2011 at 4:43

I am still having fun researching ORT and have found it on Sweet Pea Stitches and also Unravelled where it is referred to in conversation as below..

"At the Streatham knitting group on Tuesday, one of the ladies introduced me to the concept of the ORT jar.

ORT – or “old ragged thread” – is where you put all your short ends of thread as your working your way through a project. As a result, the jar will build up with layers of thread, chronicalling the projects you have worked through until the jar is full". It is also a real word in the dictionary meaning scrap and usually referring to food.  I will be starting my ORT when I commence TAST2012 and am looking for a tall very thin jar so I can see the thread layers make a distinct pattern.  So much better than  seeing them on my floor or walking around on the back of my poor dog who sits at my feet most of the time I sew.!! Otherwise I will need to call her threads instead of Patches.

 

Comment by sharonb on November 29, 2011 at 22:14

Funny people have discovered this photo again, as today I working on a project that uses all my orts I collected through the year! I will blog it when done but for the moment want to keep it a surprise. As a hint at the start of the day the jar was almost full and now it's empty and all scrap thread used. Nearly ready for a photo and a tutorial on what I did in my blog!

Comment by Rebecca A C Keith on November 29, 2011 at 11:05

I did not know what ort stood for, or where it came from but it brought back something from my childhood, my mom used size 50 thread on spools that said ONT on the end and I asked her one day what that stood for and she must have been having a bad sewing day because I remember her telling me that it meant Old Knotty thread and being little I didn't know at the time that knot was spelled with a k and it just stuck with me..so now I can add old ragged thread to my sewing vocab..just a little humor in a strange world?  love it...just getting around the site abit..blessing everyone.

Comment by Anneliese on November 29, 2011 at 9:44

OLD RAGGED THREAD: Now, super, that is really a very good explanation for the word - and it must be like that. I always want to know where a word comes from. I am gathering industriouly my ragged ones....

Comment by Connie Eyberg on November 29, 2011 at 9:43

Funny!  I have an Orts jar, well butter dish, but didn't know that is what it is called because I had never heard of it before.  I just hate to throw anything away.  I will have to transfer my Orts to a prettier jar and continue filling it so I can join in on the fun.  Even stranger is that I bought some Solvy yesterday (before I had seen this link...honest!) having it in my mind to do something with the threads and fibers I was saving!  Has someone been sending me telepathic messages? lol!

Comment by Bullion Rose on November 29, 2011 at 5:16

Hello,  I have been reading about Orts and just couldn't work out where the word came from...read about the witchcraft thing and warding off evil and confusing evil spirits, but then I came upon this explanation which I really like.. ORT stands for Old ragged thread.  That makes sense to me.  Is that what it stands for really?

Comment by Marci on January 11, 2011 at 12:34

I think I'll start a jar too.  It will end up with metallic threads, silk ribbon, bits of embroidery threads. 

I may even have a pretty jar in my sewing room as well as some Solvy.  I also want to take progress pictures of the jar, I've already decided to keep a journal of my sewing this year. 

Comment by Ruth Ann Andres on January 10, 2011 at 8:30

I am starting my first Orts Jar this year

Comment by sharonb on January 9, 2011 at 15:32

Well... Karen I do produce a lot of orts and I want to make a decent scarf from them so it needs to be a reasonable size jar. That said some of it its the angle the photo was taken from ( I was trying to avoid showing other junk on the table and I was in too much of a hurry to clear it!)

It is 18 cm or 7 inches tall  with a circumference of 38 cm or 15 inches. 

 

Linda great idea about the slide show - perhaps I should re-photograph with a neutral background so that the orts growing might show. I will have to think about that. 

Comment by Annet on January 9, 2011 at 11:25

Yes, orts are bits of fun and your jar will be a journal of orts.

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