What is the difference between using cotton floss and silk floss?
The differences are subtle. On finer linen thread counts (35, 36, 40) silk floss is preferred. You use just one strand of silk floss in your needle, whereas you use two of cotton (silk has more body), so on finer linens stitches made with silk floss will look cleaner and tidier and less bulky. Also, silk is smoother and easier to work with than cotton, and the colors of silk floss tend to be subtler, with more translucence. Almost all of the original samplers we’ve reproduced were worked with silk floss. The drawbacks to silk are that it is more expensive than cotton, and you cannot immerse it in water.
