Some of my recent embroidery adventures have involved cotton floche – like this monogram and this monogram – and without a doubt, I’ll be dabbling with the thread again very soon.
I love floche. And it re-infatuates me every time I stitch with it.
Those of you who have been hanging around with me on Needle ‘n Thread for a while already know I love this embroidery thread! But for folks who are just joining us, if you don’t know what floche is, I’ll introduce you to it here.
Whether new or old in your explorations of embroidery, you’ll appreciate floche. It’s an amazing cotton thread – it definitely tops my list of favorite cottons.
In case you’ve never stitched with floche and you’re not yet convinced it’s worth trying, here are three good reasons you just might fall in love with this lovely hand embroidery thread.
1. Floche is an Easy Thread
It’s easy to stitch with floche. If you use a #7 or 8 crewel needle with it, you’ll notice that it glides beautifully through your ground fabric.
Floche is non-stranded embroidery thread, which means you use it right off the skein without separating it. Normally, you just stitch with the one strand, which makes setting up a new needle and thread very quick and easy.
Because it’s slightly heavier than one strand of regular floss (it equals about 1.5 / 2 strands of regular floss) – but it’s more softly twisted, so it has that nice “spread” – it’s easy to stitch quickly with it and get good coverage.
It handles practically all stitches well, but I like it best with classic stitches like satin stitch, stem stitch, split stitch, chain stitch, daisy stitch, French knots, and long and short stitch.
If you’re adventurous, you can very carefully separate floche and stitch with it, but doing so does weak the integrity of the thread, which makes it a little tricky. I wrote an article about separating floche, if you want to read more about it.
2. Floche is an Affordable Thread
Cotton floche comes in a Huge skein. If you purchase the regular skein of floche, you’re getting around 150 yards of thread, at about 4.5 cents a yard, which is quite reasonable for a specialty thread.
But you might wonder what in tarnation you’d do with 150 yards of thread! And this is why I’m ever-so-glad that Hedgehog Handworks sells the thread into 30-yard twists. The 30-yard twist gives you plenty of thread to work with, and it averages out to about 5.5 cents a yard.
3. Floche is a Beautiful Thread
Because it is mercerized (a chemical process that adds a sheen to cotton thread) and because it is softly twisted, floche stitches up beautifully.
It shines softly, and it offers a nice coverage for a relatively fine thread. It has what I call “spread” – the softness of the thread allows it to spread and fill and stitched area well.
The “spread” of floche makes it exceptionally beautiful when working satin stitch. You can read more about satin stitch with floche here.
Read More About It & See Floche in Action
I like floche so much that it has its own category here on Needle ‘n Thread. If you’d like to explore more articles about floche and see the thread in action, you can find a whole list of articles and projects involving floche here.
Try It!
If you want to give floche a try, I highly recommend the smaller 30-yard twists of floche from Hedgehog Handworks. They give you plenty of thread for a project, without breaking the bank.
If you’re keen to see the colors that are available in floche (the numbers match the regular DMC floss numbers), you can view this color card for floche online and download the PDF. Even better, if you want a real thread color card (one that is made from samples of the thread), you’ll find one available through the Lacis online catalog. Just type “floche” in the search box.
And, as always, if you have any questions about the thread, you’re welcome to ask! Just leave your question in the comment section below!
I hope you have a chance to give this beautiful thread a try!
