Which cross-stitch floss to choose?
Choosing your cross-stitch floss is easy. There are several brands, but three stand out and I invite you to discover or rediscover them.
Some of you will be like me, attached to a particular brand, and this for various reasons. Others will be ready to use different cottons simply for the pleasure of discovering and experimenting.
DMC, my favourite cross-stitch floss
You wonder why I use DMC? The reason is very simple; DMC is not only a French brand but also the oldest, it’s made in France, and I’m French!
Et voilà!
I learned to embroider with DMC stranded cotton (DMC 117 Mouliné Spécial in French), so I never really thought of switching to other cross-stitch floss brands.
However, there are many other reasons why I use DMC for all my designs.
- DMC stranded cotton is the most popular and widely available of the brand’s embroidery cottons range. As it name implies, it comes on a strand of six, which allows you to use the number of strands required for your project.
- It is renowned for its extensive and spendid colour palette (some 500) and for the excellence of its threads made from 100% long-staple Egyptian cotton, the finest cotton in the world.
The length of Egyptian cotton fiber makes it possible to produce long yarns while retaining strength and resistance to stress.
- DMC cotton is double-mercerized. Mercerization process, which takes place at the spinning level, not only strengthens the floss, but also gives them this inimitable silky appearance that gives depth and life to your creations.
- The brand also has a fantastic quality control, which means that you won’t see any difference from a batch to another and it’s colourfast.
- Finally, each skein is 8m long and is good value for money (I use two-strands for my designs, so the skein goes a long way!)
DMC, a popular cross-stitch floss available in most countries
A brief history of DMC…
In case you wonder, DMC is the abbreviation of Dollfus-Mieg et Compagnie.
It started as a textile factory founded in 1746 by Jean-Henri Dollfus in Mulhouse, an important industrial city in Eastern France.
DMC became the European leader in the textile industry in the 20th century. It acquired a local mining group, was listed on the Paris stock exchange in 1922, then joined forces in 1961 with two other textile factories.
Alas, nothing lasts forever, and the group didn’t survive the 1990’s fluctuations in demand for embroidery floss. It went into liquidation in 2009, but an English group bought 100% of its capital in 2016.
So that’s basically for the DMC group.
Now let’s talk about their embroidery cottons.
In 1841, in the midst of the industrial revolution, Emile Dollfus decided to diversify the factory’s products by developing the industrial production of sewing thread and embroidery cotton.
The success was immediate and this specialty made the international reputation of DMC, which to this day has remained the most widespread embroidery cottons in the world.
You’ll find them everywhere in France of course, but also in the USA and all major countries.
What to say about Madeira cross-stitch floss?
DMC is one of the most popular embroidery thread brands along with Madeira and Anchor, both equally renowned for their quality and reliability.
So let’s start with Madeira.
- Madeira embroidery cotton is another six-stranded floss produced with the renowned long-staple Egyptian cotton, the finest cotton in the world, renowned for the length of its fiber makes that produces long strong and resistant yarns.
- Madeira is also a ‘mercerized’ cotton and the skeins come in 10m length.
- Madeira cross-stitch floss is also renowned for its extensive palette of colours (379), all as flattering as each other. And as I wrote above, it’s a superb quality floss, very reliable and colourfast that can be washed at very high temperatures (up to 95c!)
- Finally, Madeira is produced in Germany and is not necessarily distributed all over the world, or at least is slightly more difficult to find. I hope you can find some where you live, as it’s really splendid!
Anchor, the 3rd cross-stitch floss of quality
Anchor shares many qualities with DMC and Madeira, qualities that make them the best embroidery cottons in the world.
Anchor is also a 6-stranded floss produced with the renowned Egyptian cotton; it is also mercerized, and has this superb silky appearance that enhances the depth of colour.
It has a very extensive palette, 444 solid colors (plus 24 multi-color and 16 ‘ombre’ colors).
Each skein comes in 8m.
These particularities make it another very popular cross-stitch floss.
From Scotland to Hungary
In case you wondered, Anchor was born in Scotland, in the city of Paisley, near Glasgow. And yes, Paisley is also the cradle of the traditional Paisley pattern and Paisley shawl!
The industrial revolution that started in the late 18th century transformed Paisley into an important industrial town and regional leader in the weaving industry.
Until the early 19th century, the spinning mills produced fabric made from silk imported from India. However, silk supply dried up because of a blockade by the French Emperor Napoleon (yes a fellow French man!) and led to the decline of the silk industry.
Cotton became the alternative to silk and Paisley the world centre of yarn production for nearly a century. Local weavers turned to the production of cashmere shawls (a production that originated in Kashmir) which became known as ‘Paisley shawls’.
The Clark family created their Anchor embroidery floss brand in 1866. Thirty years later, they merged their business with the Coats family’s who ran a successful spinning mill specializing in the production of sewing threads.
J&P Coats, as they became known, became the world’s leading yarn producer and exporter!
They expanded in Europe and moved from Paisley to Freiburg in Germany where they merged with a major German spinning mill, Mez Sticktwist.
Anchor stranded cottons are today produced by Metzcrafts.
Anchor has thus accumulated a know-how that spans over 250 years and the quality of their stranded cotton has never gone down.
The icing of the cake: Anchor prides itself on producing yarns using the latest technology and dyeing techniques. Their dyes are ‘azo free’, meaning that they don’t contain any potentially carcinogenic or allergic compounds registered on the ‘German ban dye list’.
Anchor is distributed in 67 countries.
Discover more about my ‘cross-stitching journey‘.
Happy cross stitching to you!
