Prior to beginning to stitch on my SALexandre stitcher's wallet/housewife, I am preparing my thread by winding my skein of DMC#99 variegated floss around a yardstick. This divides the floss from light to dark. I will cut the 36 inch lengths into 18 inch lengths and put them into 2 floss bags marked light to medium and medium to dark. Then no matter where I am within the design when I run out of thread, I can select the appropriate intensity of floss to begin stitching right where I left off with no wasting of thread. This technique of preparing variegated thread is found in Variegated Samplers, Leaflet #1617, a Craftways publication, edited by Karen Strauss.
