Christmas is coming - Floriani Metallic Thread Review

GUEST POST BY KARIN
(by the way....Karin is a friend who does not get paid anything at all to write these posts...and began using Floriani after I became a dealer....she was curious how it compared to the supplies she had been using for years.)

Christmas is coming!  Christmas is coming!!  Well, OK, it comes every year at the same time, ( 86 days away as of today), but in just under two weeks, the zoo we volunteer at is holding their silent auction to raise funds, and I promised I’d have something for them to auction.  Sooooo…I thought maybe a couple of Christmas-themed towels and a fabric basket would bring a couple bucks.  I thought it would also present a good opportunity to try out some Floriani Metallic Threads and let you know show you how well they work!

I chose a couple of cream-colored terry cloth towels I had on hand (I deliberately shied away from white, because I didn’t know if I was going to do a Santa or snowman or what, and white thread just doesn’t show up well on white terry cloth.  Next, I looked at all my Christmas-y designs for one that had solid fill lines & shapes, rather than running stitches alone, as running stitches tend to get lost in terry cloth.  So, I easily eliminated all my swirly winds and snowflakes & the delicate filigree ornaments in favor of the chunkier Santas and reindeer.  But I really wanted to incorporate a bit of sparkle from Floriani’s Metallic Thread, so I finally chose this little guy from Embroidery Library. 

But I wanted my towels to coordinate with the fabric basket I’d already made, so I chose to use these colors for my sewout:

Can’t really see that Floriani shine, can you?  Let’s try another view:

Ahhh, yes, there’s that shine!  And that’s exactly what I wanted to feature on my towels.  Oh yes, towels, as in TWO towels….how, exactly do you hoop towels so that the designs are in the same place on both towels??   I use a couple of rulers and that works well for me.

I just lay my towels side by side, put a ruler across them both, as evenly as I can, with the top edge where I want the center of my design, then make a small dot in the horizontal center of each towel using a water-soluble pen.  (If the design stitches over it, great – if not, it’s easily removed by dabbing it with a wet paper towel.)

So now I’ve got my centers marked, I just hoop ‘em up!  Of course, I used Floriani Heat N Gone as a topper so my designs don’t get lost in the terry cloth (see the difference in toppers here!).

Once I got into the design, I realized that maybe less is more.  I’m sure you’re wondering “what the heck does she mean?” OK, you’ve read this far, so I’ll tell ya!   I used brown for Rudolph and Floriani Metallic Red for his nose, and Metallic Gold for the first two flourishes.  Now it was time to sew the last of the flourishes, and I’d planned on using Metallic Green, but I was afraid so much Metallic would be just a bit too much, even for the blingy-lovin’ ladies of Texas….sooooo, what to do, what to do?  Well, Kelly had just the answer!  (and who of us was surprised by that?  yeah, me neither.)

Floriani’s Winter Collection had exactly the right shade of green – it was identical to the metallic green I’d originally pulled:

Bet you can’t tell which is which, can you?  (The one on the left is the normal polyester spool, while the one on the right is the metallic spool.) 

And you know what else is really cool about Floriani Thread Collections?  Aside from the thread quality, that is….each collection includes FREE Floriani designs on a CD you can use and reuse as many times as you need.  These are the FREE designs included with this Winter’s Collection:

So, how did  Floriani’s Metallic Thread perform?  Well, usually I have to sloooooow down the machine’s stitching speed, and I often switch out to a needle with a larger eye….but not this time!!!  I used my regular 75/11 embroidery needle and 850 stitches per minute, and not once did I have a thread knot or break.  And just look at that coverage, will ya?

That is some serious shine!  Santa will have no trouble following THIS Rudolph on the foggiest of foggy Christmas Eves!  And did the designs stitch in the same place on both towels?  See for yourself!



They did, they really did (the camera’s at a slight angle to minimize the flash, so the one on the right appears just a tad higher, but it’s really not!).

Am I pleased with Floriani’s Metallic Thread?  I am, I really am!  Will I use it again?  You betcha!! 

Now, who’ll give me a dollar, do I hear a dollar?  HaHaHa!  HoHoHo!!  They’d better get a whole lot more than a dollar for THIS basket!!

Written by Karin