One of the most common questions I hear from people who are new to cross stitch and other kinds of embroidery is how many strands of embroidery floss should you use on a project?
I learned by using two strands, and some projects will tell you if they want more coverage such as can be produced by using more strands, but I tend to default to two strands.
Sometimes you will want more or less coverage, or depending on the kind of work you’re doing you might want more of fewer strands. Working subtle back stitch details, for example, you might choose to use fewer strands than you did on the main colorwork of the project. If you’re stitching a full-coverage project, you might want to use more strands to ensure none of the fabric shows through.
This is kind of just a long way of saying “it depends,” but if you want to get a little more specific, Crewel Ghoul has some advice on their website about how many strands to use when.
There’s even a quiz on the page you can take describing what kind of embroidery you are doing, how big the project is and how you’d like the stitches to look, which then advises how many strands you should use.
I told it I was doing a medium sized cross stitch project and wanted fluffy looking stitches, and it advised using two or three strands, so I guess my instinct is pretty good on that.
If you want to see one example of how different numbers of strands play in a project, check out my post on French knots, which has samples using different numbers of strands and different numbers of twists in the knot. It really does make a difference and you’ll probably find you have a preference that you’ll default to as well.
I’d love to know if you “always” use the same number of strands and how many you do.
[Photo: Crewel Ghoul]
How to Make French Knots
