Tuesday, May 04, 2004

Stitcher's Five: Specialty Threads

1.)Which is your favourite brand of speciality thread? Rainbow Gallery’s Very Velvet. Silk ‘n Ivory might be a close second.
2)Why? It’s so soft and tactile. But I’m the only one allowed to touch it!
3)How many other brands of thread do you have in your stash? About a dozen.
4.) How do you store your threads? This is really bad. I’ve got some in a box and others in a bag. The DMC is either on bobbins in boxes or else in the DMC millennium chest. The rayon floss is all stored in the bottom of the chest in the section that doesn’t have the “beds” for each skein because it’s too slippery to put anywhere else.
5.) How confident do you feel at substituting between thread types and colours compared to what the chart calls for? Very confident. I do it all the time. I’ve got a great eye for color, but I have no problem recognizing when I’ve made a mistake!

This meme brings up something I’ve been working on since I bought my first specialty thread (anything other than monochromatic 6-ply cotton floss). How to store it? The box I had it all in was fine until the explosion of fibers used by designers. When it was just a couple dozen Weeks Dye Works and Sampler Threads and the odd Caron Watercolor, I was fine. Then I had to buy bobbins of Rainbow Gallery Threads…then silks…then, well, you know the drill. The only thing I have ever seen that I thought was a cute way to store it was in The Stitchery eons ago. It was a metal “sculpture”—I think it may have been in the shape of a sewing machine on top—with a series of hooks hanging down from it. The floss was hung on the hooks and the whole piece was hung on the wall. That’s not a very good description. The only problem with that, of course, is dust. I can hardly turn on a vacuum; I can just imagine vacuuming my floss! I’m not keen on Floss-Away bags not only for the expense, but also because then the floss just ends up slippery. (Try piling up a bunch of bags.) I suppose the best thing would be another chest full of those little floss beds. Heaven knows what to do with the Rainbow Gallery bobbins.