Threads

I’m so glad I have this extra skein…

I am finishing up a Easter project and I got to here and was out of thread. I happen to have an extra skein (same dye lot) but I am lucky. How many times have you gotten to here and not had that extra skein?

What to do if you didn’t notice until the bitter end?

In this case if you could get a gray that is close (different dye lot) I would frog stitch: rip-it rip-it out. This is a contained area and the dye lot change will probably not be noticeable for two reasons:

1. It is its own self-contained area, isolated from other areas of gray stitching.
2. The area has is slant different from the other paw and slanted not like the feet or head.

Also in this case if the gray dye lot was noticeably different (bummer) you still could salvage the stitching by removing both paws and re-stitch with new dye lot.

But what do you do when the area is a large area and you run out of thread? Don’t throw the piece away, there may be some good solutions.

You can try and ask the needlepoint community on line if anyone has another skein of your dye lot. We are a fairly friendly and honest group and love to share. I always check when someone asks…usually I’m a day late and a dollar short…someone has beat me to a random act of kindness already.

If that fails you can get another dye lot and hopefully the new dye lot is very close. I also hope you realize the lack of thread before you have used every last inch because you can start stitching with the new dye lot every other thread until the old is gone and then finish up with the new dye lot. It would also be nice if you were using a stitch other than Basketweave….Basketweave is not very forgiving when it comes to new dye lots but you can “pepper stitch the area and then fill in with new dye lot. You gotta do what you gotta do.

But what if all else fails and the dye lot is so different you  are about to give up…Wait, look at the canvas a try and find a cutoff place. Hopefully you are stitching a background or large area and have enough thread to cut off so it looks planned. Then look at the canvas, pick a stitch very close to the original. Example:  stitching with Mosaic using dye lot A, use a Reversed Mosaic or Continuous Mosaic and stitch with dye lot B.

My best advice is when purchasing the threads for a canvas buy one more than you think you need for large areas. Life happens and if the canvas and threads gets pushed to another days stitching you will be covered. This bunny had 4 skeins of gray…I will have most of two left over and 3 skeins of overdye used in pants (Using overdyes are a post all their own…will leave for another blog day.); I have parts of all three left.

I don’t think of these extra threads as overbuying but rather as stash enhancement! I like to always buy at least two of any thread I purchase (especially if there is a dyelot number) We all know the threads that have dye lot changes regularly and overdyes are the worst…even if the colors don’t vary the length of color can vary)

Hope this is helpful.

Thank you for stopping by to visit, I hope you find time to stitch today or do whatever helps you be creative!

ttfn…sue