cross_stitch: Thread Substitution Help...

Heathwitch (

heathwitch) wrote in

cross_stitch,
@ 2007-02-19 12:38:00

Current mood:	curious
Current music:	Mike Oldfield - Mont St. Michel
Entry tags:	floss conversion, how to

Thread Substitution Help...
I am currently stitching Lili of the Valley's Just Married, from Heritage Stitchcraft. It's for a friend's wedding later in the year.

The kit comes with instructions for how to change the bride and groom's hair colours -- there's the choice of either brown or blonde. Now, I'd love to customise the end result according to the newlyweds' hair colours; the groom has brown hair, so that's fine, but the bride's hair ranges from blonde to brown. I'm tempted to do some thread substitution, but I'm unsure about how it would work.

The colours given within the kit for blonde are as follows:

DMC 744 (grapefruit)
DMC 745 (banana)
DMC 3865 (cream white)

The colours given for brown hair are:

DMC 839 (dark brown)
DMC 840 (brown)
DMC 841 (light brown)

I'm tempted to use something from DMC's Colour Variations range, but I'm unsure if this would work. I'd probably be looking at shade 4140, with potentially elements of 4150... Or perhaps it would be better to look at individual threads...

Does anyone have any advice or ideas? All I can say is I'm glad it's not my hair colour I'm trying to suss out for this -- I'm a vibrant redhead!

(Post a new comment)

crwilley
2007-02-19 01:18 pm UTC (link)

If you have a picture of the bride and some photo-to-chart software, it might be useful to process the picture and see what color suggestions the software gives, and pick out the most dominant ones. I'm not sure I'd use the Colour Variations unless you're talking about something like "brown with blonde highlights" - it might be too hard to place specific shades where you want them.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	dashalovesyou 2007-02-19 02:43 pm UTC (link)
	Thats a good idea. You can use this- http://www.darklilac.com//upload.jsp (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	heathwitch 2007-02-19 04:30 pm UTC (link)
	Thanks for the URL! (Reply to this)(Parent)

	heathwitch 2007-02-19 04:29 pm UTC (link)
	Thanks for the input. Sadly I don't have a photo of the bride so use in the manner you suggest, though that would be the optimum solution. I like the Colour Variations but am unsure as to whether they would work in this instance, as you say... Perhaps I could try stitching with them first on a piece of spare fabric to see if they would work... Anywho, thanks again! (Reply to this)(Parent)

	firesign10 2007-02-19 01:50 pm UTC (link)
	Would tweeding between the blonde & brown threads work at all? (Reply to this)(Thread)

	heathwitch 2007-02-19 04:30 pm UTC (link)
	Possibly, but I've never come across the term before -- can you explain further, please? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	crwilley 2007-02-19 04:48 pm UTC (link)
	It's also called "blended needle" - you'd thread your needle with one strand of the blonde color and one strand of the brown, resulting in a color somewhere between. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	heathwitch 2007-02-19 04:54 pm UTC (link)
	Ahh, yes -- I actually know that method well, but didn't actually know any of the names for it. Thanks! (Reply to this)(Parent)

	firesign10 2007-02-19 04:56 pm UTC (link)
	It's another word for blending threads. So perhaps you could use one strand of the blonde threads together with one strand of the brown for a more shaded/blended color. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	heathwitch 2007-02-19 04:59 pm UTC (link)
	Thanks! :) (Reply to this)(Parent)

	karmic_sinkhole 2007-02-19 06:48 pm UTC (link)
	My only suggestion is to stitch the hair with a couple if the ideas you have on another piece of fabric to test them out before you stitch it on the final. I'm guessing it's not too large an area. I find it's time well spent when I go with this sort of mod. Good luck! (Reply to this)(Thread)

	heathwitch 2007-02-19 07:44 pm UTC (link)
	Thanks for this -- it was something I was considering but was loathe to do for fear of running out of time. I think I will stitch the rest of the chart, and then experiment with what I can depending upon the time available. Obviously with a deadline it's hard to do! Thanks again! :) (Reply to this)(Parent)

	drealkulit 2007-02-19 08:40 pm UTC (link)
	Am I crazy for thinking that maybe you can hold up sample strands of floss by the bride's hair to see what would match? LOL! Of course, you'd have to be really sneaky so they won't catch you! ;) (Reply to this)(Thread)

	heathwitch 2007-02-19 09:28 pm UTC (link)
	ROFL No, not crazy... Sadly she's on the other side of the country to me, otherwise I'd make a valid attempt at it! Though it would be interesting to do the same to my own hair -- there again, I'm not the one getting married! :p (Reply to this)(Parent)

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