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Floss Haul

My guy and I were out walking an antique mall last week when I spotted a bundle of vintage DMC floss in a bunch of very old plastic bags held together by a key ring. I knew even for $9.95 no one would probably buy it (the bags were soiled and worn, and the floss had probably been in them for decades) but when I looked through the floss and saw how pretty it was I decided to take it home with me.

The ring held thirty bags of floss, some with multiple skeins. I'd date it back to the 60's or 70's.

Once outside the old bags the floss glowed like it was brand new -- 44 unused skeins and 16 partials. To pay less than ten dollars for it is a major score, because it's worth about fifty bucks.

The seller obviously didn't know (or didn't care) about how much floss is worth. I do. DMC just raised their prices this year, and on average floss went from .79 a skein to .95 a skein. That doesn't sound like much to people who don't embroider, until you consider that some projects require up to thirty or forty different colors, or are so large you need three or four skeins of each color.

I will happily use this floss in next year's calendar tote project, but until I start it, it will stay in my thifted vintage DMC thread cabinet. :)

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