Back to Floss Talk! The embroidery floss that I mentioned last week is Cosmo Embroidery Floss. Several readers commented in the original Floss Talk post about Cosmo Embroidery Floss, so you probably already know that it isn’t a new floss, though it is new to me. It’s very popular among quilters and is found more often in quilting stores, I think, than in regular needlework shops.

I’ve wanted to try out Cosmo floss for a while, after hearing about it from readers and getting several questions via e-mail about it. So far, I’ve only done a little bit of stitching with it, so I thought I’d share my first impressions.

The Hand Embroidered Pall Saga is not quite over. Today, I’ll show you some steps I took towards finishing the project (which isn’t finished yet), and explain some further precautions I took with it (the tale didn’t actually end!). I’ll also try to answer some questions that came up the last time we visited this embroidery project.

Erin, a reader in Michigan, sent me some photos of an embroidery project that she inherited from a friend. I bet many of us can relate to receiving a partial embroidery kit from friends or relatives, and not knowing where to find the missing elements. In Erin’s case, she has the fabric stamped with the design, and nothing else. Some stitching has already been done on the project, and she would like to finish the rest.

Yesterday, I brought up the subject of favorite embroidery flosses, specifically of the cotton 6-stranded variety. While I was writing that post, it brought to mind all my favorite embroidery threads. And among the favorites is what we call in the US “coton a broder,” a 4-ply, non-divisible, mercerized cotton thread that is used especially for whitework. If you’re not familiar with what it is and what it looks like, you can read a previous article on coton a broder and thread organization, which will give you some information about the thread.

If you’ve been hanging out with me for a while on Needle ‘n Thread, you’ve probably already discovered that I have a deep love for embroidery floss of all kinds. Yes, I’m a sucker for silk, but I love cotton, too. Wool? Oh, yes! Wool is right up my alley. Linen threads? Absolutely – why not? Silk and wool blends? Oh, what a happy combination! What not to love?

And that’s not to mention the sub-categories, the brands, the synthetics, the…. ok. You get the idea! I am a thread junkie!

The other day when I growled about my Big Mistake with the bleeding dye from the silk thread I was using on a hand embroidered pall, I mentioned Orvus, and since then, I’ve gotten lots of questions about it.

I’m not an expert on cleaners and so forth – I’m just going to tell you what I know about Orvus, which isn’t necessarily from the “expert” point of view – but maybe there are others out there who can vouch for it, too.

Sorry about stringing you along there yesterday! The fact is, I wasn’t sure how this tale would end. Would Orvus be the hero of the piece, saving the fair embroidery so that we could all live happily ever after? Or would this be one of the stories with the unsatisfactory ending – realism, in a harsh and unforgiving world?

It’s difficult to say. I think we could call it a story of compromise. The Orvus didn’t work completely, but it worked enough to be satisfactory.