Swapping Floss Colors

Back when I was a quilter . . remember . . way, way back . . I would often come across quilters who wanted to make a certain pattern but couldn’t find the exact same fabrics as were used in the original design. I’ll admit to having some weird tastes in color but I never understood only wanting to make a pattern if you could use everything exactly as was done in the original design. To each his own though . . I don’t fault anyone who wants to do that. If I was looking for fabric for a quilt, I could generally go into a quilt shop or look in the stash, pull a few colors and be done rather quickly. I think I’m just not too picky when it comes to color. There were times, especially when my stash was small, that I’d need to use three or four shades of one color and if I was having to order online, those colors might look on the screen like they worked well together but when they arrived, they didn’t. Then I’d have to order more colors and basically, that’s how the stash grew to be large.

When I was teaching quilting, color was never my area of expertise but when I would come across someone struggling with their color choices, I would tell them that if I handed a gray scale drawing to 10 different people and asked them to choose their fabrics and make that quilt, all of them would choose different colors, different values, place their lights and darks in different places, and all would be gorgeous so, basically . . don’t let color choices stop you from making a beautiful quilt.

With cross stitch, for me, it’s much the same. Because I don’t have a ton of floss, especially the overdyed floss, I generally start off ordering the called for floss when I order the chart if I’m ordering it from a shop. If not, I’ll either order the floss or run to Hobby Lobby and get the floss as it gets closer to time to stitch the project.

The problem I run into is that linen is a bit hard to get. There’s way more linen available now than when I started cross stitching towards the end of 2020 but the linens that are used by designers can be still very hard to get. Many use R&R or Seraphim and I rarely come across that for sale. Also, a linen may be available in 30 count but they didn’t even dye it in 36 or 40 count and I mostly want to use 36 or 40 count. So, when I choose a different linen, some of the floss colors they chose may not show up well on my linen.

WOW! That’s a lot of words to say that I’m using Picture This Plus Relic on the Big Red House sampler and the cover piece was stitched on Straw by Weeks Dye Works. I probably could have gotten Straw but I wanted to use something I have. I was afraid the floss color, Putty, was not going to show up on Relic so I pulled out five or six other colors, similar but darker, hoping they would be a better choice. I’m leaning towards leaving Putty and at least making a few stitches with it before ruling it out.

But, Kentucky Bluegrass is a color I don’t have and need. I had hoped to not need it before the ordered floss arrives but . . I kinda need it now. There’s a DMC color conversion and I don’t have the listed DMC color either. We went to town today but didn’t go as far south as Hobby Lobby and I figured it wasn’t worth it for just one skein of floss. When I got home and realized I needed to do the leaves that required Kentucky Bluegrass, I started looking at other options.

The DMC color called for is 3768. It’s a grayish/greenish blue.

The color above 3768 is Sampler’s Brethren Blue. The color below is Week’s Chesapeake Blue. I think Brethren Blue is a bit dark since the stem is Onyx – an almost black green so I’m going to try it with Chesapeake Blue.

Hopefully I can get a couple of leaves stitched tonight but it’s late and I’ve slept no more than four hours the last two nights so it will not be a late night of stitching.