How Many Strands of Floss Should You Use?

In all my time doing cross stitch, since I was a little kid making projects for the county fair, I have pretty much always used two strands of floss to stitch. No matter what kind of project I was making, what size fabric, what kind of thread, always two strands. It’s just what I learned and it didn’t occur to me to think about it.

But what if you want to use more or fewer strands of floss when you stitch? Do you need fewer strands if the count of your fabric is larger? (Which means there are more squares per inch and therefore denser stitching.)

To help you answer these questions and actually see the difference without having to test it all out yourself, I bring you this awesome post from Thread Bare all about coverage with different thread counts.

Here you can see what it looks like to stitch with one, two, three or four strands of floss on fabric including 11 count, 14 count, 16 count, 18 count Aida It also shows one, two or three threads on 20 count Aida, 22 count Hardanger, one or two on 28 count Evenweave, as well as 25 count Magic Guide over one or two holes (over two holes also shows three threads). Each thread count is shown in a square and in full stitches or with a single cross.

It’s really interesting to see the difference between different thread counts and how dense even half stitches can be on high count fabric.

This is a great reference to save if you often work with different sizes of fabric and aren’t sure how much thread to use, or if you’re wanting to design your own projects but you aren’t sure what combination of thread count and fabric count will look the best. Of course it’s always a great idea to test how your own stitches look with a given thread and fabric, but this gives you a place to start.

[Photo: Thread Bare.]

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