If you were the type of person to daydream about embroidery thread, what type of thread would you dream about?

For me, it’s silk.

I can dream about silk embroidery threads all day long, if I let myself.

Today, I’m going to let myself.

Ok. I don’t mean I’m spending my day with my head in the clouds, staring out the windows, picturing the world enrobed in silk threads. I’m not going to have conversations with imaginary skeins of silk. (Well. I don’t think I’m going to, anyway…)

But I am going to think about silk. I’m going to sort silk. Test silk. Touch silk. Group it, organize it, mix it up again. And I might even dabble with some preliminary stitches with silk threads. My goal today is to make decisions about silk, and so – poor me – to do that, I have to surround myself with silk embroidery threads.

I know. It’s such a tough way to spend the day.

One type of silk thread that I’ll be concentrating some effort on is from The Silk Mill.

I’ve written about The Silk Mill threads before.

Considering my current needs (for the silk version of the Secret Garden project), The Silk Mill offers something rather unique when it comes to silk embroidery thread. It offers a line of 600 (and soon to be 650) shades of filament silk embroidery thread.

That’s a lot of color choice!

The Silk Mill has a nice range of vibrant blues and greens.

It also has a great range of brilliant turquoise-y blues.

It has a wonderful range of reds and corals and pinks. And of violets, and oranges, and yellows.

With 600+ shades to choose from, obviously, it has a good range of pretty much all the colors.

There are so many silk threads that I love! My favorites have always been Au Ver a Soie’s silks – they’re such high quality embroidery threads. And Soie d’Alger (a spun silk) comes in an extensive color range.

But when looking for a finer filament silk embroidery thread with a soft twist (Soie de Paris would be the Au Ver a Soie thread that fits in this category), I think The Silk Mill has the best options for color selection.

Chances are, on the silk version of the Secret Garden project, I’ll be working with a couple different types of silk. I have a completely different approach in mind for the silk version of the project, and to work it out, I’m giving myself plenty of latitude for choosing threads.

For those who wish to follow the silk version, I’ll be publishing updates on thread choices as I work it out on the project. The stitching on that won’t start for a little while yet.

The decisions I make on threads and stitching approach for the silk 201 version of the Secret Garden project may differ from the decisions you would make. If you’re following along with the cotton version of the Secret Garden and like the look of it already, but you want to work with silk and you’re eager to start stitching, you might consider working the same techniques I’m using in the cotton version, only with your favorite silk threads.

And now, I’m off to face that arduous task of tinkering with silk threads all the day long. I don’t know if I’ll survive it. But if I do, I’ll see you Monday morning!