Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Perle Cotton

Both embroidery floss and perle cotton give you a showy stitch when you quilt with them. Embroidery floss has the advantage of easy availability and a wider variety of colors. The disadvantage is that it is 6-ply - there are six different threads wrapped together. It makes it harder to thread the needle and maybe I'm the only hopeless one here, but I seem to get loops in one of the little threads and so it pulls funny and unevenly from the others. Anyway, you can separate the plies (plys?) and 3-ply will give you the same effect as using perle cotton size 8. Use all 6-ply for a very bold stitch.

I didn't know if I was going to be able to find embroidery floss here, so I stocked up before we left the states. And then I found floss on sale for 11 cents a skein. Eleven cents. That's a steal. Had to buy even more. As it turns out, I can buy good quality DMC floss here, tho I've heard rumours that may change.

Perle cotton size 8 comes in balls. Larger perle comes in a twisted length almost like floss. I've never tried quilting with that larger size and I'm not sure if it can be done. Anyone tried it?

Anyway, when I talk about quilting with perle cotton, it's size 8 I'm talking about. You can usually find black, white, red and blue fairly easily; other colors at specialty craft, art, or thread shops.

This is the back of one of my quilts done with the perle cotton. And my knots - makes it look interesting. You can see how much thicker the perle is than the quilting thread.

7 comments:

Finn said...

OK Tonya,this is gettin' tooooo weird...LOL. I came into the sewing room (computer is in here) and scanned the corner of a quilt I had done in perle cotton, thinking it would be a logical followup to yesterdays posts. Soooo I did that, responded to your comment/question and then scrolled down to see if you were here today...LOL. AND what do I find...LOL..you also decided to write about perle cotton today. WOW ! Are we in sync or what? And both of us prefer # 8. I love the pic of your floss, and how great to be able to buy it at that price. Best I can do here is .35 a skein or 4/$1. I think you should stock up while you're there. Keeps really well. I have quite abit of older .05 a skein Coats and Clarks from my Mom back in the 1960's...still as bright and strong as ever.

Perle cotton here in WI is as high as $2 to $4 a ball. I have found it on sale(like that orange at Ben Franklin) occasionally. Friend Betsy and I always check for it at any new quilt shop we stop at.

Tonya Ricucci said...

The 11 cents a skein sale was in Maryland at an A.C. Moore's. Great price. Here it's more like 55 cents a skein, depending on what the exchange rate is. But it's instant satisfaction, so sometimes that's necessary.
Best price I have ever gotten on perle size 8 was $1.75 at Pearl Paints, also in MD.

Anonymous said...

Tonya,
Checking out your blog from link on Bonnie's site and I just sent you an email. Check out crochet cotton - you'll love it. I normally only find size 10, but I've had good luck with it - and heck dye it to be the color you want!
I have a quilt I quilted with crochet cotton if you ever want to see a picture.
Dawn Denman

Bonnie K. Hunter said...

The puke green is my favorite color :c)

Bonnie

Tonya Ricucci said...

Hey, the puke green is perfect for Halloween.

Tonya Ricucci said...

Hey, the puke green is perfect for Halloween.

Lyric said...

New to quilting, new to using perle cotton (or anything, LOL). From where I stand I can not imagine why one would NOT use perle cotton or embroidery floss. I want my quilts to pop and this seems just the thing to help.

Thank you for posting this oh so long ago. It still applies today.

Namaste,

Lyric
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