Organize, Organize - get those needles in order

The weather here has finally warmed up which is absolutely lovely, but a little less conducive to knitting with wool in the evenings.  Regardless, I've been making some progress on the Peepers socks.

However today, I want to talk about this:

 

Can you guess what it is?  It's the way I now organize my circular needles.  For a while, I kept them in their original packaging but this eventually stopped working as the plastic packaging ripped or was lost to time and travel.  Then, the needles were hanging on a series of pegs but it just looked and  felt unorganized when I saw them as I walked in the room. 

 

Circular needle storage has been talked at length on blogs and podcasts (Knitting Pipeline mentioned it in an episode this spring).  It's just one of those topics - everyone seems to have their own 'best system.'  You would elicit the same varied reactions from knitters by asking the question, "How do you knit socks?"  There would be an endless combination of answers.  However you manage it, I thought I would share my new favorite system in case you're on the lookout.

I store my books and patterns on the shelves and my dpns reside in a tidy hand sewn role, but circular needles always presented a problem.  Enter my inspiration photos: this one and this one and this one.  Viola!  A tidy, efficient, inexpensive way of organizing the needles.  I used a 3" binder from Staples, two packages of plastic tabs, and one container of clear presentation sheets - all from Staples. 

The sleeves are open at the top, the needles don't fall out and it's a breeze to flip through and find the size that I need.  Everything is pre-labeled so I do not have to spend time looking for a needle gauge (which I never seem to have around anyways).  The only disadvantage to this system would be the fact that it would not possibly travel well. I've grabbed the sizes I need before I leave the house, so it has not been an issue for me.  I left 1 clear pocket at the front to stash needles that need to be sort into the correct size and length sleeve so they are not laying around if I don't have time to sort them.  I also added a needle gauge to the front of the binder by clasping it through the binder rings.

All in all, an excellent system that I would recommend!  How do you store your needles?  Do you have something that works differently or better?  Share below.