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| Empress merino/cashmere/silk thread by Pure Palette/Dreamhouse Ventures |
Now that I've been blogging regularly since 2006, folks have started sending me products to review. I have mixed feelings about this. I am happy to have access to things that my local shops don't carry or that I haven't talked myself into spending money to mail order, but I am a bit worried about not presenting things fairly to you, Blog's readers. It is all too easy to give a good review of things sent by friends or by small business owners that you know are struggling to make it in a harsh economy. I want to be fair to all involved, so any time I am sent things to review, I'll mention they were sent to be reviewed and will cover all aspects of the items, the good and the bad points. Just because something doesn't work well for me doesn't mean it is bad in general. Needlepointers have a huge range of interests and stitching styles. I don't use a lot of perle cotton, for example, but that doesn't mean that it's a bad thread. I just happen to not use it very much. I want to explain enough about anything I review so you know as much as possible and can decide for yourself whether you want to seek it out.
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| Empress Color #8454 Dry Martini |
Empress feels great when you hold the skein or stitch with it. A strand is about the size of a strand of Appleton crewel wool, and it looks just like crewel wool when you pull out a loose end to cut off a stitching length. Above you see tent stitches and then rows of cashmere stitch on 18 count. One strand covers well and looks very much like any wool thread except for the soft feel when you touch the stitches. I am allergic to wool, particularly Paternayan, and avoid stitching with it in the summertime but I had no trouble stitching with Empress, even though it was 85 degrees in Chilly Hollow when I stitched the above. I didn't think to test vertical stitches with Empress but I think one strand would also cover pretty well on 18 count in upright stitches, which usually need more thread to cover the NP canvas completely. You are going to need to use two strands on 13 or 14 count to cover.
The Pure Palette's website hasn't been updated in quite a while, so only Soy Luster is listed there. They also have a silk thread called Baroque Silk.
http://www.thepurepalette.com/index.html
Fortunately, Needle in a Haystack has photos of most of the colors of Soy Luster and of Baroque Silk on their website. Here're the links, Soy Luster first. and Baroque Silk second.
http://www.needlestack.com/WebStore/Thread/TPP_SoyLuster.html
http://www.needlestack.com/WebStore/Thread/TPP_BaroqueSilk.html
As far as I can find out, no one has posted photographs of Empress on their websites yet so when Dreamhouse Ventures sent me a selection of their Empress that might work on Luna, I laid them all out and took a photograph for you to see. The colors are, from left to right:
Cabernet 8178, Vintage Linen 8490. Gravity 8248, Heliotrope 1168, Iris 8204, Big Sky 8240, Santa Fe 8242, Old Men 8564, Dusty Miller 8562, Soot 8566, Twister 8582, and Witching Hour 8600. The dark gray skein above the row of the others is Tarnish 8596. I opened it so you could see the thread texture. The olive green Dry Martini 8454 is pictured separately above. The colors are generally soft and muted, which is pretty much what I remember of the display of these threads at Needlewoman East which had about 30-40 colors my last visit.
It's a lovely thread, and one I will enjoy using because it feels so good when you stitch with it.
Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow
7 comments:
Jane, I picked up some of this thread to stitch on 18 canvas. While I agree with your comment about the feel, I didn't think it covered well at all. I don't know any fancy stitches so my experience was with just basketweave and continental. The color thread I was using was a bit lighter than the painted canvas below and I could see a lot of the canvas between the stitches. I pulled it out and switched to Vineyard Merion, my second favorite thread after Silk and Ivory. Thank you for doing this review! I look forward to many more.
Thanks for the feedback on the thread. My LNS doesn't carry a lot of variety on threads so I either have to go out of town to find a new thread or do some WWW ordering. I usually do not use wool but maybe this one would work for me.
And thanks to the sale links the other day. I added that Charlie Harper canvas you featured to my stash! I will not admit to how many of those I have in my stash waiting for me but lets just say that if there is a shortage of painted canvas in the future, I'm covered for life!
Carol, I'm glad that falling leaves canvas went to a good home. I thought it was darling myself.
Thanks, Whitney. I tested olive green and dark gray and both covered 18 count canvas well in tent stitches. It's good to know that occasionally it doesn't cover. Wonder if it was the color (some dark colors seem to make the thread thinner) or the difference between our stitching tension? Could have been either.
The moral is to try it out whenever possible!
Oh, Jane and Carol... in 2011... let's each stitch a Charlie Harper canvas... in tandem. OK? I've got 2 in line for Stitch Guides, but there's one I want to do for myself.
Great idea Robin! Which one shall we stitch or should I just chose one from my stash? And I'm looking forward to finding out which you will do stitch guides for as well. Sometimes I like figuring out a stitch to use and sometimes I just want someone to tell me.
Yes, Robin, Tell All about your stitch guides. (If you can, I know some are secret until you teach the class at TNNA or until the new design is revealed at a trade show.)
Do you do custom stitch guides for folks? Are you doing these for Amy's shop? Can anyone contact Amy to ask for you to do a guide for them? I know guides you have done in the past are listed on Amy's website but I didn't see any Charley Harper canvases on the list. (link below)
http://www.amybunger.com/custom_stitch_guides.html
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