Recently, I caught myself embroidering with two things I never stitch with, and it set me thinking.

I never (well – never say never!) use bright orange as an isolated color when stitching.

When I set out to stitch a little plaited braid sample last week, I opened my drawer of miscellaneous silks, where a few spools of Trebizond silk reside among a smattering of other uncategorized threads.

In the drawer was a spool of Trebizond that I’ve passed over a hundred times. It is orange. It is bright, deep orange. It is Orange to the extent that you could not really call it anything BUT orange. It is the Essence of Orangeness. (Do you get the idea it’s Really, Really Orange?)

And normally, I wouldn’t reach for that degree of orange to work an isolated sample.

But I did.

And about halfway through the sample, I found myself saying, “I don’t stitch with this!” That day, I did stitch with it.

And I liked it.

Metallic braid is a thread I never stitch with. Generally, this is on principle. I’ve had too many b-a-d experiences with metallic threads when trying to use them for regular surface embroidery stitches. But I had a couple spools of Au Ver a Soie’s #16 metallic braid floating about, neglected, and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try it. While working up the sample, I found myself thinking, “I don’t stitch with this!”

But I did.

And I liked it.

The moral of the story is this: Sometimes, it’s good to venture where you wouldn’t normally go with your stitching. This applies not only to colors and thread types, but even stitches and techniques. A good way to really round out a stitchy education is to actually try things that we wouldn’t normally do. This is how you’ll know if you’ll really like something, and to be able to say why you like it or don’t like it. Being able to reasonably qualify the “why” or “why not” helps up make better choices (and not just in stitching, but in pretty much everything).

Hmmmmm…. maybe I should change the whole color scheme on Needle ‘n Thread to orange….