Welcome to another Tooled Up column where we aim to give you reviews of fun products from all over the crafty world. Today we review some Italian hand dyed threads by Romy’s Creations.
I do love the uniqueness of hand dyed threads. If I see a stand at a show I find it hard not to buy them all. But from time to time I get them home and find them a bit disappointing. Not the case with Romy’s Creations.
The colour pallet on offer is great, and with six strands at 8 metres long they are a nice length to handle as well. They don’t end up a tangled mess on your sofa, they unwind nicely to stay tidy. And the cards they hang on are strong enough to wind any short stray threads you have around them for future use.
What better way to test drive them than to stitch with them. I had been wanting to do the “Do what makes you happy” pattern from the Stitchrovia book, Cross Stitch for the Soul, for a while now. It’s a great slogan to live your life by. Especially during a global pandemic! I used one of my Pony Black needles to stitch with, I reviewed them a while ago here.
While looking through the Romy stash I was really taken by the beautiful names the threads have. From ‘snowflake’ to ‘ocean waves’, and from ‘Barbara’s Pumpkin’ to ‘Holly Jolly’ – with a ‘Halloween’ thrown in for good measure. They are really fun.
In the end I started with the word Happy on my pattern and decided to make it bright so I went for the fabulously punchy Sunflower and Squirrel. Squirrel made me giggle. It’s a great vibrant variegated orange thread which would make a great squirrel. It also helped me with the pattern as the pattern called for three colours to blend into each other but Squirrel was already so nicely blended that I used it for two of the sections in one go.
The way the threads are so nicely dyed really caught my eye, so I contacted Romina Petrucci who owns the company to ask her how long she had been doing it for. She has been dying threads since 2007, having accidentally found a tutorial about how to dye thread and just giving it a go. Her friends loved the results so her company was born.
While I had her attention I had to also ask about the great names of the threads too. She says sometimes names jump out at her and sometimes they really make her struggle. She usually names them after friends, nature, and places she has visited.
While stitching the piece I found the threads to be high quality, perfect in colouration, easy to breakdown into single strands, and strong.
So here is my finished piece. I used the following threads:
Do – Stacy’s Primitive Blue and Nougat Blue
What – Purple Nebula
Makes – Eggplant
You – Enya, Camouflage and River Rock
Happy – Sunflower and Squirrel
The lines above and below the word Makes – Ara Macaw
At the moment Rimini based Romy does not have a supplier of her threads in the UK, but you can buy them directly from her on Etsy here or by contacting her via email here. She also has a Facebook page here.
