Today’s tip on separating (also called stripping) embroidery floss is handy especially for beginners, because stripping your floss first makes a huge difference in the look of your stitches, whether you’re doing surface embroidery, cross stitch, or any other kind of stitching.

Any type of divisible thread for embroidery benefits from stripping or separating before stitching with it. Stripping floss is simply separating the individual strands from the larger bunch of strands. With regular DMC embroidery floss, for example, there are six strands in one “bunch” or main thread as it comes off the skein, and each of those six strands can be removed singly from the bunch. Usually, you remove the number of strands you’re going to stitch with one at a time, and then you put them back together again when you thread the needle.

The advantage of this exercise? It untwists the individual strands from each other, so that you get fuller and more consistent stitch coverage from your thread.

Here’s how I separate my floss. I know others do it differently, so this is just one way that’s always worked for me without any hitch.