Why does nobody talk about how expensive linen thread can get for a big project?

I dropped $45 on a spool of Irish linen thread last month thinking it would be a game changer for my coptic stitch bindings, but it kept snapping on me halfway through and I had to toss the whole thing. On the other hand, a buddy swears by the cheap cotton thread from the craft store and says it never fails him. Has anyone else had linen thread let them down like that, or did I just get a bad batch?

2 comments

2 Comments

logan23626d ago

My grandpa used to swear by waxed dental floss for bookbinding, said it was cheaper and stronger than anything on the market. I tried it once for a small notebook and ended up with this weird minty smell on all the pages that drove me crazy for weeks. Still, your friend might be onto something with the cheap cotton, sometimes the high-end stuff is more trouble than it's worth (especially when it breaks).

williamb2926d ago

That thing about the minty smell made me laugh because I had the exact same problem when I tried using unwaxed floss on a leather journal. I switched to regular cotton thread from a fabric store and it worked way better than I expected. The trick for me was to run the thread through a block of beeswax a few times before using it, that kept it from fraying without adding any weird smells. I've been using that same cheap cotton for years now and it never broke on me compared to the expensive stuff I bought once.