With silken threads...

Stitcher's Five 5/3 - Specialty Threads
1.)Which is your favourite brand of specialty thread?
Hm. In general I like silk threads - they feel very nice when stitching. As for favorite brand, that's a tough call, but I think I may have to give the edge to Vicki Clayton's silks.

2.)Why?
Beautiful colors, and the threads are very easy to work with. That, and Vicki is very nice and is open to suggestions for new colors - Midnight Rainbow is proof of that :)

3)How many other brands of thread do you have in your stash?
Um... Not sure, to be honest. I've picked up various things over time, gotten more types in trades, and so on. I have a fair bit of Caron, some Silk'n'Colors, WDW, Needle Necessities, Madeira, Rainbow Gallery, GAST, Kreinik of various types (metallics and silks), Six Stranded Sweets, DMC Perle... Without rummaging through my stash, those are the ones that come to mind.

4.) How do you store your threads?
All of my stash, with the exception of charts and books, is stored in plastic storage bins under my bed. Some of it is stored in plastic hardware-storage bins, others are in empty Whitman sampler boxes, and some of it even in my cable-modem box. All of the smaller boxes are inside the larger storage bins. I know, my stash could benefit from some better organization.

5.) How confident do you feel at substituting between thread types and colours compared to what the chart calls for?

Fairly confident. I substitute colors rather often, usually converting female figures to redheads. My most recent conversion in that respect was changing L&L Emma's Garden. I think it turned out pretty well, and I personally think the little girl looks better with red hair. But then I'm admittedly biased. I also changed the roses slightly because I didn't like the way the designed color spectrum looked.

For thread types, I've swapped in silks for lettering, or for rows in band samplers. I've also used metallics for accents on occasion. I usually only do small substitutions in general, though. I haven't gotten brave enough to do very large color-swaps (other than hair ;)

Probably my strangest 'sub', though, was using a few strands of my and DH's hair (along with standard DMC) for the angels' hair in TW Birth Announcement. For using hair, you definitely have to use other threads with it, and treat it like you would metallics. Good for really putting a bit of yourself into that special piece, but not something I'd do very often at all.

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So I didn't get to stitch last night. Did some webwork, and against my better judgment stayed up to watch through the end of regulation of the Red Wings - Flames game. I'm surprised I'm not more tired.

But at least things are calm on the home front, so I'm not as stressed as I was yesterday.