Separating Embroidery Floss

Separating Embroidery Floss

So, yesterday I put up a post about crochetting a rock cozy. When I found that regular crochet thread was too bulky for my project, I decided to use a few strands of embroidery floss instead. The trick was… how to separate them from the twisted 6-strand length. I tried to look it up on the interwebs, but the techniques they offered were for short lengths of thread – only about 1 metre at most. Unfortunately, I had 8 metres I was wanting to separate (so that I would have enough to crochet a large motif), so the ideas I found wouldn’t work for me. Hmm. At first, I separated out 3-strands and started pulling them out, trying to untwist as I went – but I just ended up making a big, knotty mess. Time to put on my thinking cap…

Eventually, this is what I came up with.

Step 1: Open The Skein. Remove the wrappers and find the center of all the loops.

Step Two: Slip The Centre Around Something Heavy. Like a book, or piece of wood, or something similar.

Step Three: Separate Out Your Threads. Initially, I chose two sets of 3-strands, unwinding the thread clockwise to unravel it, then wrapping each set of strands in a tiny, little ball. But this was very time consuming. So…

Step Four: Attach Your Separated Threads To A Small But Wide Object. I took two sets of 3-strands and taped them to a little wooden block that my son had. You could use anything for this – a piece of cardboard, a toilet paper roll, another small book… Or, you could also separate out different sized sets of strands – three sets of two, six sets of one, etc.

Step Five: Rotate. Turn the block like a propeller to unwind the thread. For me, this was clockwise. When there is a good length of unraveled yarn, roll the block up like a roll of wrapping paper, taking care to keep your sets separate. Unwrap a bit more from around the book and repeat until done.

Step Six: Use Your Strands. You can work with it right off the block, or as I prefer, you can wind the string into separate tiny, little balls.

And voila – separated floss threads, in nice long lengths! I like to have all my thread ready to go before I even start my project, and since I only had one block that was that size, I ended up doing four bunches of floss ahead of time. Kinda pretty altogether, don’t you think?

Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it? 😉 Happy crafting!

12 Replies to “Separating Embroidery Floss”

  1. Nice work! I was just at an embroidery class (and have a very cool pattern to show you) and I was going to suggest the technique she gave us, but you’re right it’s only for little amounts. Nice thinking Macgyver!

  2. Hi Kate…
    Your floss separating method works great… THANK YOU. I did step it up a notch… I used a thinner block… a binder clip and a piece of non skid… I was able to separate the floss into 2 strands each… taped the strands to the block… I placed the non skid under the book… helps to keep the book from sliding,,, as I separated and wound the strands on the block… the twist built up. I placed the binder clip on the edge of the block to hold all the strands… and then holding up the book I let the block dangle and spin to untwist… I repeated this a few times… and very happy with the results… I found this way works best for me.

  3. Thanks Kate… but you are the original genius… I like to do punch needle and Valdani floss is so pretty and so expensive… so when I stumbled on your method to separate and entire skein of floss I was thrilled… Now… if I could figure a way to blend the 2 strands into 4 strands getting that tone on tone blending of them would be great… Valdani is a 3 strand floss… I would think I can fudge it using 4 strands of DMC. Or just maybe… separating 6 strands to 1 strand each… and properly blending 3 graduating shades like Valdani… This will be my next challenge.

  4. You can also seperate your floss then wind on a nostapenne. A little stick with grooves to wind yarn. You can make balls that pull from the center. They will look like the Valdani balls. I run a stick thru the center and then anchor in a cheap plastic basket I got from the dollar store. This works great for punch needle no stopping and starting.

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