Thanks to one and all who left comments on the give-away for the complete set of DMC Diamant metallic embroidery threads!

Reading through your comments was fabulously enlightening. To hear how people stitch with metallic threads, what their thoughts are about metallic threads, how they overcome the frustrations of working with metallic embroidery threads… this was all good stuff to read!

If you happen to be a stitcher who wants advice on using metallics, read through the comments on the DMC Diamant give-away article. There’s a bunch of good info in there!

There are lots of stitchers out there right now stitching (or preparing to stitch) the Lattice Jumble Sampler from the Sampler Guide that was published a couple weeks ago here on Needle ‘n Thread.

On the Lattice Jumble Sampler, I used coton a broder #25 exclusively. But I used it in a very haphazard manner, this thread here, that thread there, pulling colors from my stash without any definite plan to the colors and their placement. (It was a very random sampler!)

If you want to plan colors for a stitch sampler like the Lattice Jumble, then you might be a little distraught over how to select colors without access to coton a broder at a local shop.

Of course, if you can purchase specialty threads in person, you’re a lucky duck! But if you can’t, and you have to resort to online purchasing (which is the case for most of us!), then what to do? What to do? Most websites only list color numbers and maybe the descriptive color name.

Enter, the color card.

And a little comparative research.

Just a brief update on the Mission Rose project. The stem is finished, and the bud is underway and will be finished this weekend.

Then, I’ll be experimenting with some fabric for some appliqué work on the piece. Can’t wait to get to that point!

Today’s a good day for a give-away, don’t you think? As Winnie-the-Pooh would say, “I think so.”

Well, today, courtesy of Cathe at Needle in a Haystack, I’m giving away a whole set of DMC Diamant.

Last time we looked at the Mission Rose project, I was musing over threads and colors for the stem, which really should be called more of a branch. Perhaps even a trunk…

Keep in mind that this is a stylized rose. That is, it’s not a natural representation of a rose. It does not look like a rose that we would find in nature, and yet, there are characteristics of it that correspond to the rose, and so, it is a rose, but it is a stylized rose.

My job job here is not really to make it look like a real rose. If that were the case, the rose itself would be vastly different, and – oh! – those Dr. Seuss “mitts” that are supposed to be leaves would have been eliminated from the start.

All that, by way of making excuses for the brown branch.

These days, we have wide access to all kinds of embroidery threads – an “embarrassment of riches” in that regard – as long as we’re willing to shop online.

Because local needlework shops with specialty threads are few and far between, we often have to purchase threads unseen. So, in order to take out some of the guesswork, now and then I like to write about hand embroidery threads, especially those that are a little more obscure. Hopefully, this will give you a greater knowledge of what’s available to the stitcher, and maybe give you a better idea of what you’re going to get and how it can be used when you order embroidery thread.

Today, I’d like to show you a thread by DMC. Here in the States, it’s not a well-known thread, and it’s not available (to my knowledge) through the regular DMC-USA channels. It’s fairly widely available in the UK, though, and probably throughout Europe. It’s also available in Australia, according to a quick Google search. In the US, I only know of one shop that carries it.

The thread is called DMC Diamant.

As far as projects go, lately I’ve been focusing on the Mission Rose quite a bit here on Needle ‘n Thread.

The Mission Rose is my Blog Project right now – the project that I’m showing step-by-step on the website, in order to demonstrate how embroidery projects develop, in order to demonstrate techniques, in order to offer little tips along the way that you can apply to your own embroidery, and so forth.

I like to have a major Blog Project going because it gives me a kind of coherent series or theme to develop on the website. It keeps me, in short, from being a little too haphazard in what I choose to write about each week!

There’s a little security in knowing that there’s one project that I must write about each week, at least once and often twice, so I can arrange my week’s writing around that project. At the same time, because I know I’ll be writing about it, it gives me stitching goals to meet.