Metallics: What a Pain

Below is what I've done the past two days:

I stitched about two hours each day.  Most of that time was spent dealing with metallics in one form or another, and boy, was it a pain!

Both the white (DMC B5200) and black (DMC 310) were combined with Kreinik blending filament.  It creates a nice sparkly effect and it isn't usually horrible to work with.  But for some reason, the black blending filament shreds and separates and refuses to cooperate.  I'm sure it's just a bad batch, but it's making me nuts.  For the time being, because I don't want to wait for a replacement spool, I'm just carefully searching for stitchable lengths and that's working so far.  I have two more medium-sized areas to stitch in black.

The gold is #4 Very Fine Braid and I'm using two strands.  Because it's a metallic, and because it comes on a little spool, it can be curly and springy and bouncy and generally uncooperative.  And that's just one strand.  Two strands each doing their own thing are quite frustrating to work with.  There are some tools and techniques to make it easier:

     -Use short lengths.  I like to use about a foot.
     -Use a thread conditioner.  I use Thread Heaven.  Some people like beeswax
     -Use a laying tool when dealing with multiple strands.
     -Consider alternating your metallic work with stitching with easier threads
     -Meditate.  Take deep breaths.  Go as slow as you want.