Planet Earth Silk Opal – Thread Review

Planet Earth has added a new silk and metallic combination thread to their line. Similar to Vineyard Silk Shimmer; this thread combines their basic single strand silk with a blending filament size metallic into a single thread.

I have a couple of colors to test out and used the cream/silver combination on this Mimbres fish (designed by me and available from Whimsy & grace).

This color looks particularly well against the sandstone color of the canvas. I also really liked the way the slight bit of metallic shimmer stood up well against the black metallic throughout the piece. The soft silk was a good textural contrast, whiled the occasional metallic flash picked up the sparkle of the black.

This thread comes in 103 colors, combining a colored silk with either gold or silver metallic. For you this means that you can shade or stitch Bargello with these threads. It also means that you can use them in place of a more matte thread to emphasize areas in your stitching.

That’s a wonderful tool. It works because, as you can see from my fish, the metallic is both random and occasional. Unlike a metallic thread where the sparkle is regular and shouts “Look at me!” or some blended threads where the metallic is about equal to the non-metallic, this blend is a good proportion of colors that will work well in a broad range of designs.

I’m really looking forward to my next project using Opal, where I will use it in some textured stitches.

About Janet M Perry

Janet Perry is the Internet's leading authority on needlepoint. She designs, teaches and writes, getting raves from her fans for her innovative techniques, extensive knowledge and generous teaching style. A leading writer of stitch guides, she blogs here and lives on an island in the northeast corner of the SF Bay with her family

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•