Cross stitch and embroidery

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thegiddystitcher@lemm.ee

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Stitchy mail! And a question for any other UK stitchers (i.imgur.com)

submitted 8 months ago by thegiddystitcher@lemm.ee to c/lemmy_stitch@sh.itjust.works

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Ok it's not the most exciting stitchy mail in the world, but I don't get to afford things in bulk very often and that's quite a big wallop of plain white aida that'll probably last me at least a year!

Since I needed to order this anyway, I also took the chance to grab the last few colours needed for Errol. Just have to get them on floss drops and I'll be all set! But this brings me to my question...

Our local craft shop sells their skeins for £1.40 ($1.77 per single skein for the US folks). It really really adds up.

I used to buy all my floss online from https://www.enchanted-needle.co.uk which for a long time sold them at £0.69 (nice) and that obviously made a huge difference.

Unfortunately nowadays their pricing has gone up to £0.99 in line with the other big online options, which is still a lot better than £1.40, but when you take postage into account it's no longer really saving much if anything on small orders.

So, after all that rambling, my question is where are other UK stitchers getting your floss? Is there a trick to finding it at the old prices? Or are we just all completely out of luck?

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[–] IoSapsai@lemm.ee 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

@MrJameGumb@lemmy.world I'm a big fan of Ariadna. Costs 0.50$ (0.35 from my local stores). It's cotton, holds up well and it's made in Poland. The colours wash well and I often mix it with DMC to reduce costs. To the trained eye there might be subtle differences but I don't see them. Their palette is similar to DMC but with a different numbering system. They have most colours DMC has to offer but they're not always a complete match so bw aware of it when you swap. I don't see any difference while working with it quality-wise.

A quick duckduckgo search led me to this store thst ships internationally

Also if you don't mind cheap Chinese retailers I'd reluctantly recommend CXC. You can read more a out it on Sirithre's blogpost about it

[–] MrJameGumb@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I just bought a bunch of CXC to try out! I may give Ariadna a try too, it sounds cheaper than what I pay here!

[–] IoSapsai@lemm.ee 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

My main worry about CXC is how it holds up after being washed. I haven't used them so I can't vouch but I had no such issues with Ariadna and it was what I started with at first. A lot of the kits local designers assemble also use this brand, if you want them to make it cheaper, so it seems to have proven itself in Eastern Europe at least.

[–] MrJameGumb@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Once my order gets here I'm going to make a quick easy pattern to do a color comparison and a wash test! I'll make a post about it as soon as I'm done! Just gotta wait for the floss to arrive lol

[–] IoSapsai@lemm.ee 2 points 8 months ago

Yay! Science!

[–] MrJameGumb@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

It's still staggering to me that you have to pay so much for floss! I wish I had some advice but the places I buy from don't ship outside the US and Canada 😞 Are there any other brands besides DMC that are equally good but maybe cost less?

[–] thegiddystitcher@lemm.ee 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

It's annoying that getting a friend to send stuff from the US is also prohibitively expensive, I'd have to buy a LOT of floss to save money that way. Yep, did the maths 😀

Luckily most of my collection was bought in the 69p days but omg buying new ones is killing me.

(to answer that last part I daresay there probably are other good brands but I want to get into designing more and really need to know the colours I'm recommending work properly for everyone so DMC it is)

[–] MrJameGumb@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I haven't ever used them so I don't know if they're any good, but according to google CXC Floss uses the same exact numbering system as DMC and is supposed to be cheaper. Apparently that's a DMC clone brand

[–] thegiddystitcher@lemm.ee 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I've been burned before! But yeah it does sound worth looking into, if only for replacements of colours I already own and can verify against. Not sure I'd ever fully trust them to be the same without a verification step 😅

[–] MrJameGumb@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Ok, I just ordered some on Etsy. With shipping it came out to $32 for 50 skeins which may be a good or bad thing...

I will report back once I try it out!

[–] thegiddystitcher@lemm.ee 3 points 8 months ago

Your contributions to science do not go unappreciated.

[–] ClickStitch@sh.itjust.works 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I use Lakeside Needlecraft, I've found that the aida/hoop cost is decent compared to what else I've seen so always gone with them!

[–] thegiddystitcher@lemm.ee 2 points 8 months ago

Thanks for the suggestion! They were always in the 99p range even when Enchanted Needle were suspiciously cheap at 69p so no idea how the latter managed to be so cheap for so long, or how Lakeside have managed to avoid increasing their prices lately! But yeah now that everywhere seems to be about the same price I'm tempted to switch to them just because it looks like it's easier to bulk order a lot of colours.