Saturday, August 30, 2014

Eureka! Floss length

Eureka!


To many of you this tip might seem obvious but it is something I wish someone had told me when I was starting out. It can be annoying having to keep threading your needle when your floss runs out, so why not use a really long piece of floss so you don't run out as often? Well being pulled back and forth through the fabric is pretty tough on a length of floss. The longer the floss the more times the bit at the end has to pass through the fabric and unfortunately this can leave it looking a bit ratty and well... sad. When the floss starts to get worn you might find your stitched lines don't look smooth and will be thin and irregular.

threadpink

Find your happy floss length; for me it is just longer than from my fingers to my elbow or if I am going to use a lot of a certain floss on a project I take the skein, remove the paper bands so it is a big loop and snip through all the strands off floss (just once) to give me lots of pre-cut floss at a nice workable length. Bingo!

flosslength

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2 comments:

  1. I try to cut my floss at a reasonable length as well for just the reasons you described. If I find I'm going to use a lot of a particular color, I'll thread several needles at one time. That way, once I run out on one needle, I can just grab the next one and keep going. I keep my floss in small baggies (snack size), so if I don't use all the cut threads, I can just drop the cut pieces back in the baggie. The other advantages of the baggies, as opposed to wrapping threads around those little cardboard gadgets, is that I don't have the crease in the thread while I'm sewing. The snack size baggie is a bit longer than a skein of thread and I can write on the outside the manufacturer and color name/number. I punch a hole in one corner at the top and put the baggies on large rings by color.

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  2. Great tip- I love the idea of having lots of needles threaded and ready to go, Thanks Suz!

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