Anchor Freccia 12 Thread | The ShuttleSmith

I bought these 3 threads several years ago at one of the IOLI Conventions and have just recently pulled them out to use them on a project. I looked it up on the web and found that this thread is a 3-ply cotton, still being sold in the EU and comes in sizes of ‘6, 8, 12, 16, 20 & 25’.

At first I thought that they were a form of perle/pearl cotton (perle thread uses a numbering system of 3, 5, 8, 12), but upon closer examination I wasn’t completely sure what kind of thread they were. As you can see, my thread is labeled ’12’ which is why I thought it was a perle cotton. However, I was positive that this Freccia thread size 12 (thicker) did NOT match perle cotton-12 (thinner) in size.

So I tried to figure out what thread size my Freccia 12 most closely matched.

What I really need, but have been unable to find, is the book Threads in Lace by Brenda Paternoster. In this book, Brenda (scientifically) quantifies thread ‘size’.

I noticed that the Freccia labels specified that there was 285 meters of thread in the 50 gram ball. That started me on a road-of-discovery…. I was able to find yardage/meters on many different threads in different sizes including DMC Perle, Lizbeth, Anchor Cordonnet, DMC Cebelia, DMC Cordonnet and calculated out yardage per 50 grams of thread.

I was able to determine that the Anchor Freccia 12 thread is closest to a size 10 crochet cotton which is the left one in the next photo. The Anchor Liana 10 was 300 yards per 50 grams. The Anchor Freccia 12 was 312 yards per 50 grams.

Anchor Liana (cordonnet) 10–6 ply–on the Left. Anchor Freecia 12–3 ply–on the Right.

To prove this sizing, I tatted a few rings in the two threads.

Blue piece is the Anchor Liana Cordonnet 10, Red piece is the Anchor Freccia 12

Since proving/learning about this thread type, I have embarked upon a large undertaking to quantify thread sizes. This is partly due to the fact that in my 4+ decades of tatting, I have used many different types of threads from many different manufactures and know that each thread has its own characteristics/personality. Even in the Size 20 cordonnet threads, that I have been using almost exclusively for my design work for my ‘Fun with Split Ring Tatting’ book series, I have noticed differences in ‘size’ between the same size of thread from various manufacturers. (Don’t get me started about the differences in size between different colors of the same size of thread from the same manufacturer!–that is for a future topic.)

To date, I have quantified almost 80 different threads based upon how many yards of thread in 50 grams of thread. Watch for this data in upcoming posts as I figure out how to use/publish my excel charts.