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Overdyed Floss

Marylee Klinkhammer

Ready the fireworks and wave the flags -- it's Fourth of July in America! We have a long history in this country of celebrating our Independence Day with vibrant color, raucous sound and miles-long parades, and this year is certain to be the same. The inclusion of this design in our magazine is no accident, because we wanted to say in a big way, "Happy Birthday America!"

I happen to love things with an Americana theme, and this design exemplifies many of the best things about this genre. It has very basic shapes, a simple color scheme and an attractive combination of design elements. For stitching this pattern, designer Carla Acosta originally suggested using a white, a cream, two shades of red, two shades of blue and a yellow for the Cross-Stitches, and suggested a black brown for Backstitching.

Never afraid to try new things, we wanted to mix it up for you and chose to use Weeks Dye Works hand-overdyed floss for stitching. To do this, we combined the designer-suggested similar hued colors into one shade each of the overdyed floss. So, instead of eight colors, we now have five. Five gorgeous, vibrant colors!

There are two ways to stitch using overdyed floss:

• You can work across the entire row, making a row of bottom crosses and then coming back with the top cross. This makes the shading very subtle with little mottling.
• Or you can complete each stitch as you go. My favorite method, this uses the amazing fiber to its greatest color effect and emphasizes the shading inherent in the floss.

When stitching with overdyed floss, remember -- no floss can be guaranteed colorfast. If your finished item may get wet, you will definitely want to rinse the floss before stitching by holding the skein under running water until the water runs clear, then allow it to air dry. Of course, this may dull the color of the floss, so you should experiment with a small section of floss first.

It will change the color values in your floss and fabric and can potentially damage the fibers in your project.

So, whether you're from America or another country, I hope you enjoy using these special fibers in one of your upcoming projects.