I’ve stitched various projects in the past using single floss colors in the needle, and I have to say now that I’ve been working on Egyptian Sampler that I love the result you get using blended floss. It gives the work some depth and dimension, instead of being somewhat flat in feeling. As time-consuming as it is to prepare the floss, it is entirely worth it.

On this progress pic, I’ve done the back-stitching on the left portion of the border. On the right corner I’ve back-stitched just the flower motif. Back-stitching makes all the difference in …read more

Just a short note this morning. The last few days I’ve indulged in a frenzy of combining colors and stitching like mad, and what I have to show for it includes a slightly stiff arm and framing for border motifs across the top of the Egyptian Sampler. I am feeling rather clever for stitching in this manner. The little motifs would be a major hassle if I had to fuss with the floss tails for each one, but with the outline frame of the border stitched, I have somewhere on the back to catch tails. This …read more

Yesterday was an exciting needlework day. I finally got to start stitching Egyptian Sampler! When I first bought the chart and floss, I also made up my project floss cards. Noted the chart symbol next to the hole on the card, and filled ‘em up. For the blended colors I just cut one length of each color, so there are 6 prepped lengths of each color ready to stitch with. I cut two lengths of non-blended colors, so I could separate and re-combine the strands and have 6 lengths ready of the non-blended colors as …read more