Hand dyed silks

Earlier this month I was at the EGA Heartland Region Seminar in Kansas City. One of my instructors mentioned an online source for hand dyed silk floss, a company called Hand Dyed Fibers. I’ve worked with silk before and like the look and feel of it, but the price can be somewhat prohibitive, especially if you are doing a larger piece. This hand dyed is more reasonably priced so I decided to give it a try. The regular floss is $1.65 for 8.7 yards, while the variegated is $2.00.

I recently made an Ebay purchase of two counted cross stitch Christmas stocking designs by Just Nan in Victorian colors. Doing these in silk seemed like a natural. I selected the one that required the fewest colors, checked the website for the DMC conversions and placed my order. My order was at my home within a week.

I just love the way these are packaged. They come wound on plastic bobbins. It’s very easy to see the colors and each bobbin is clearly labeled with all the floss info you could possibly need.

I took photos of the DMC cotton floss next to the Hand-Dyed silk floss conversions so you can see how they compare. Keep in mind that these are hand-dyed silks and are not meant to be exact duplications of the DMC cotton flosses. That said, some of them are amazingly close in color.  You can probably see that the Ecru color has a slightly yellow tone in DMC and a slightly whiter tone in Hand-Dyed silk. You will need to decide if that color variation would work for your particular project. Once I get to the point of stitching the stocking I’ll take a closer look and see if I want the more yellow tone or if the whiter tone fits with the project and linen I’ll use.

Also offered on the site are packets that have been selected to work a number of published projects. You can easily select the manufacturer with the pull down menu, or simply scroll through the entire selection.

I haven’t yet started this stocking project, and don’t look for it any time in the next month or so, but will let you know what these silks are like to stitch with. If the customer service is any indication, I’m sure I will love using them!