Earlier today, the wonderful stitcher and blogger Diane Gasior, sent me an email and asked my opinion about the new thread Glisten from Rainbow Gallery. She was having some difficulty working with the thread. Shes using it on a background doing Skip Tent. She’s tried using shorter lengths but it still frays. 

Here’s my thoughts on Glisten.
I love the look of it!

It fills the holes beautifully on 18 which I find surprising. Usually threads that are designed for 18 mesh are much tom thick in my opinion.
I agree that the ends fray because of the 4 strands you are working with. I find that if I use a size 20 needle then I don’t have a problem. It opens up the hole more so less fraying. I don’t think I would use a 20 on skip tent because the holes open too much and I can see it and it bugs the heck out of me! But I would use a larger needle if it were a full coverage stitch.
I never use shorter pieces of thread. Slows me down WAY too much! A bigger needle does the trick. Even with Flair I use a 15-18 inch length.  I’ll give you some tips on working with Flair and Petite Frosty Rays another day. 

Some of my customers will put Thread Heaven on it to control it, but I personally don’t think it’s a great idea to put anything on a thread. You just have to deal with it! Lol!

If I want something fine with sparkle on a background I prefer to use Petite Silk Lame Braid.
So, to sum up, I think that Glisten is best used for full coverage stitches on smaller areas. I know it makes beautiful Turkey Work but I haven’t worked with it that way yet. 

There are much easier threads to work with on a background. Keep background threads simple. More on that topic later…
If you don’t follow Diane on Facebook, you should. Her page is Diane’s Stitchin in the Mitten. She’s a fabulous and prolific stitcher!