Sunday, March 7, 2010

STRIPPING


Well, now that I have everyone's attention!!

I wanted to share my tip on stripping Lorikeet. The first strand or two are difficult to pull without creating a huge tangled knot. Amy's tip on pulling the first strand only few inches, then straightening the remaining plies works well, but some stitchers still seem to end up with knots. Once you have a knot in Lorikeet, it's very time consuming and frustrating to figure out how to separate your strands.

Credit to Amy Bunger"s Halloweenies Home Study, of Amy's Golden Strand for the "tip" above; used with permission. Amy's stitch guide tips are proprietary, but this is one example of how much I appreciate the educational experience of working Amy's stitch guides!




So here's what I do:

You can see in the picture that I have pulled one strand to the left, with the remaining strands in the center, and the right. There is no knot in this skein, even though the central threads appear tangled. Instead of grabbing those center strands that are already tangled, grab the remaining strands just to the right of the mess, and straighten from there. Once you have the one strand "released" from the rest, then you can go back and straighten those central plies if necessary. If you grab in the middle of those central strands, you might end up with a knot, because the plies can overlap.

I actually do this holding the strands from above, and pull down on the remainder, but direction is probably irrelevant. Do not try to pull two strands at once; it won't work!

hope this helps!
Kathy

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the tip. I love Lorikeet but any wool thread will tangle into a mess almost as big as the mess Accentuate can make. It's nice to know how to cope.

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