Saturday 17 August 2013

Pipers Silks arrived!


Thursday was a great day - my order from Pipers Silks arrived!  It was way faster than I thought it would be as I hadn't thought of even hoping for it before this coming Monday, but the despatch note hit my in-box on Tuesday evening and the package arrived less than 40 hours later.

Above you can see the new arrivals.  There are 4 of the 'Embroidery Packs', which are good value collection builders at 10 cops for price of 9.  In the centre row: 'Nature' (various brown-based shades) and 'Summer Fruits' (purplish pinks and deep reds); and the bottom row: 'Autumn' (golds and oranges) and 'Plush Pinks' (reds and red-based pinks).  I used the colour lists from other packs as well as the on-line colour chart and Susan Peck's helpful advice to select the greens, blues and purples etc that you can see at the top.  I managed not to overtly duplicate any shades I had, although one or two are remarkably similar and there may have been one or two name changes since my first lot were made as I noticed, for instance, that I really couldn't tell any difference between 'rhubarb' and 'dark rhubarb'. 'Dark lettuce' and 'leaf' are almost the same too, as are 'champagne' and 'deep cream', so those are to bear in mind when it comes to time to restock.


This is now my whole collection of Pipers Floss Silks.  Which section does your eye go to?  Mine's really drawn to those lucious pinky purples part way into the middle row (from the left).  I think I bought that set simply as I love that type of colour so much!  Now I'm longing to find a use for them.

I also have black and white of the fine twisted silk 2/20 and a black 4/20.  I've become quite curious as to how all those numbers work!  I can see that the lower the first number, the finer the thread, but what happens when the second number changes??  Anyone know?

When I came to arranging the whole lot in my box, I ran into something unexpected:


If you read my last post, you might remember that I thought I would be able to get all these floss silks into the first two layers of my box, thus leaving the third for finer gauges of thread that I hope to get hold of later on.  So, what happened?  Susan tells me that the company who make the cardboard core of the cop (they call them 'cops' as opposed to 'reels' or 'spools') have increased the width of the tube a little.  So, whilst they fit into the sections nicely still, I can't get three layers in as expected, but only two.  Where I have a mixture of older, narrower cops and newer ones, I can get about seven in each section - eight at a push, but only six of the new ones.

At first, I was a bit disappointed about that, but then I realised that it really has its good points as putting fewer in each section means that it's both easier to see more of the colours and is likely to preserve them in better condition as there will be less fidgeting around in each section to get to the shade I want and the cops rubbing against each other tends to lead to a slight 'fluffing' of the silk (I had to rewind parts of some of my old cops to reduce this after long storage).  So, I've decided it isn't so bad after all.  For those of you who expressed an interest in this type of box as a storage solution for Pipers cops though, please note that you can only store about 108 in it as opposed to the previously advertised 160+.


I can fit about another sixteen cops into these three layers and then I need another box to store finer gauges in.  Oh, what a shame!!!=)LOL.  Watercolour paints, you're getting your own box soon!

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2013

14 comments:

Sparklyjools said...

Scrumptious! I love those autumn shades. Got to have some!

Jane S. said...

Those colors are breathtaking! I am drawn to the rich greens. :)

Carol Ann Hopper said...

I love pipers silks. They are beautiful.
Carol P.S. I bought one of the boxes and it is great.

Kate said...

Gorgeous! I love them all!

Kate said...

Gorgeous! I love them all!

Anonymous said...

What lovely colours!! I think I'll have to get some, now! I haven't tried these yet.

Like you, I was drawn to the purply shades when I first looked at the whole selection. But they're all great.

Glenis said...

I like the purples (5th and 6th on the second row) but the eye keeps going back to the blues top-right

Anonymous said...

AUGHH!!
You and Mary Corbett - you're just a pair of *fiends*!
I bought, several years ago, a couple skeins of Eterna silk floss, in a bright royal blue . . . just because it was so lovely. I still haven't used it; haven't found a project worthy of it (or the budget for the rest of the silk thread I'd need for the only project I have in mind that might be worthy - a replica Laton jacket).
After seeing this, and Mary's posts on her storage cabinets for her silk thread collectsion . . . I don't need new shoes, or underwear . . . or laundry machinery . . . I need silk threads.
Especially the dark reds at the Right of the middle row, and the bronze/browns at the left of the lower row.

Rachel said...

My goodness, there's a sight to turn any embroiderer green with envy! I am so looking forward to seeing what you do with them

Suztats said...

Droooooling.............such delicious colours!

Isabelle said...

I love silk. it is so ... so beautiful, so perfect, it's shines... and the light inside the thread ... it is ... it is ...
I am silk-addict

donata de le pinocchie said...

che belli i tuoi fili colorati!!!
Sono uno spettacolo, ora buon lavoro!
Donata

sharilyn graham said...

If you don't mind my asking , where did you find your boxes for the silk floss ?

Elizabeth Braun said...

Hi Sharilyn! I got the box on Amazon UK. It was designed for jewellery making. I'm sure something similar will still be available. :)

 
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