Wired Thread

DMC has recently announced that they will be discontinuing Memory Thread. If you aren’t familiar with it, this thread is a thin wire covered with floss. The neat thing about it is that you can bend it into shapes that you can the attach to your canvas.

It creates a very different look that’s slightly raised from the canvas and that is fantastic for curved shapes, letters, and embellishments.

Without Memory Thread, stitchers are thinking about alternatives. There are many around.

First off Kreinik has a wired metallic, Wired Braid, that is metallic wrapped around a thin wire. As this post on Kreinik’s blog shows, it makes an excellent substitute. If you can’t find the color you want the post also has instructions to make your own.

You can also use those same instructions to make wired threads using any tubular thread, such as Flair.Because wired threads are appliqued on canvas, expend your thinking for covering threads to include other tubular threads and even shoelaces.

Unhappily the basic color of craft wire is a dark grey and that won’t work with a translucent thread. Instead look to beading wire that now comes in many colors. Think of it as a wire equivalent of the metallic in Frosty Rays. Find colored beading wire at places like Fire Mountain. ZebraWire is the colored wire and it is available in many places.

If we want to go a bit further afield, you can make other kinds of wired threads. DIY pearl cotton, for example, could have thin wires laced through it once it is made. You would not want to use it when making the thread because the twisting would kink and weaken the wire.

Thick knitting yarns could also have thin wire running through it. Because the wired thread is couched, the thicker yarn isn’t a problem as long as it is in scale with the needlepoint.

We should thank DMC for giving us this chance to be creative!