Sprite Stitch Board!

While I've been waiting for my 18 count black aida for the Dragon Force banner to show up, I found 14 count hunter green! Perfect for the Triforce pattern! (I'll be working the monochrome version posted here).

I wanted to play with some shiny silk or metallic thread, but I've never used it before, so here's my preliminary tests. The silk frays easily and is incredibly slick, while the metallic one is extremely coarse and.. I dunno what to call it, warps easily? Any tips for working with this materials would be awesome, because I'm just fumbling around on my own XD. Probably not the best idea for my first actual cross stitching in years, but oh well!

I'll probably go with the silk stitches and metallic outline. More to come!

Update: I've decided to go with the silk thread, working with no hoops to prevent fraying and short lengths to maintain the sheen. I really like that the whole thing is made up of small pieces, because it feels like I'm making a lot of progress when I finish each piece ^^.

5-15-10 Thread Test: 6-1-10 Roughly 1 week of actual work on it:

Someone on the forum (I forget who, sorry) has suggested in the past to using one thread of metallic and one thread of normal cotton.

I can't tell. How many strands did you use?
I just use 1 strand off the spool...it is usually thick enough for any project.


I guess I never had too many problems using the metallic floss!!

also knotting the thread to the needle will prevent it from fraying too much and slipping out of the eye of the neelde. This works with either silk/metallic thread

Wow! That's a lot of suggestions =O

DMLC wrote:How many strands did you use?

I used two, same as the other floss-es. Using one turned out nice, though, so I might try that.

Knotting the thread to the needle? I've never heard of that. Won't it have trouble going through the holes in the fabric?

shouldn't have a problem going through to fabric, just thread the needle as normal and then knot the tail part of the thread to the main thread that forms your stitches as close to the needle as possible twice. creates a tiny knot near the eye of the needle which you'll need to cut off after you've secured your stitches but stops the thread from falling out of the needle and fraying

Updated with a WIP picture! I'm sorry I've been lazy in taking more pictures along the way, finals are fast approaching.

looks great so far! How are you finding working with the satin threads? I'm stitching a ghost using the glow in the dark one and it really winds me up at times lol

Thank you very much!

crazystrange wrote:How are you finding working with the satin threads?

I tried the knotting thing for a while, but then I was afraid about keeping the thread too stationary (and getting the thread icky or losing its shine from touching my hand near the eye of the needle for too long, even though I wash my hands and use tissue paper religiously). So I just kept with short threads and leaving long tails to secure in the back. The way the ends fray, they're like mini explosions that can get in the way, but the whole experience has actually been pretty nice. I really like the way it looks and have gotten a lot of compliments so far, which is really encouraging.