About

Mary Corbet

writer and founder

 

I learned to embroider when I was a kid, when everyone was really into cross stitch (remember the '80s?). Eventually, I migrated to surface embroidery, teaching myself with whatever I could get my hands on...read more

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Thread Talk: DMC Diamant

 

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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.

DMC Diamant Metallic Thread
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Needle ‘n Thread Sneak Peeks!

 

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.

Floral Monogram B
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Online Crazy Quilting Class with Allie!

 

Allison Aller of Allie’s In Stitches is a world-renowned crazy quilter who makes absolutely incredible quilts!

And it’s one thing to make incredible crazy quilts – but to bring it off with ease, and to make it look so dang fun? Well, that’s Allie.

Hers is a blog I follow faithfully. She always has something to teach or something cheerful or beautiful to show or talk about.

And she has an awesome garden and grows killer tomatoes.

Crazy Quilting Online Class with Allison Aller
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Mission Rose: Satin Stitch Complete & Stem Decisions

 

The satin stitch is complete on the outer parts of the petals on the Mission Rose.

It dragged out a bit because I was avoiding the inevitable: I had to make a decision about the stem on the rose.

It was a thread decision: To switch, or not to switch? Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the shortage of brown shades in one line of thread, or to take arms against the shortage, and by switching from one line of thread to another, end it?

I switched threads.

Mission Rose Satin Stitch in Silk
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