This is the first post in a series, which I will call: "Things I Love".

Each week, I am going to post about something I love and why. Most often it will be about something I use in the doll-making process. I'll explain its virtues,, how I use it and where you can find it. There's no shortage of things I love and I hope some of these things will eventually become things you love as well.

I thought I'd start with perle cotton. Also called, pearl cotton.

Aquarelle from Paraguay and available on eBay.

What is perle cotton?

Perle cotton is a high sheen twisted cotton embroidery thread. It is very similar to a very fine crochet thread. It comes in sizes 3, 5, 8, 12, 16 and 20. And to make it confusing 3 is the largest size. There are a handful of brands--Finca, Valdini, DMC and Aquarelle.

Sizes three and five are thicker and nice for decorative embroidery. I own and use mostly size twelve balls, but a few eights. I prefer the balls to the skeins, since they don't tangle and are easy to store and reuse.

I am obsessed with details and like to use a fun element in a detail that others might treat as mundane. I tend to use this thread when my stitches will show since it looks neater brighter and shinier than plain thread. I always use it for sewing on buttons, snaps and labels.

Click on image to see a close-up of button thread.

It's strong, you only need a few passes through to secure a button, snap or label and the color pops. I especially like it for sewing in snaps (another post on this) because they look so much neater and are more pleasant to sew on. Prior to switching to this method snaps were my least favorite task.