Make customized cording, piping, straps, and trim to decorate pillows, table runners, candles and more. Cord jewelry items, friendship bracelets, ropes to applique onto designs...the sky is the limit. Use any fibers, yarns, or strips of material. Combine your favorite colors, team colors, school colors, or colors to coordinate with a project.

Get started making gorgeous trims, cords, and jewelry with the hand-held Kreinik Custom Corder and four gold metallic threads.

Need another pair of hands? Komas come to the rescue.

What is a Koma?

This wooden spool serves as an extra "hand" to hold threads you are couching on the surface of your fabric or canvas. Originally used in Japanese embroidery, komas are used world-wide by stitchers of all ages and skill levels. Kreinik's Komas are made in Ohio, turned with West Virginia and Ohio wood.

What is couching?

Couching is a surface embroidery technique in which you tack down a decorative thread with an invisible, coordinating, or contrasting thread. These tacking stitches can be either side to side, down the middle of your couched thread, or a decorative stitch such as Herringbone, Elongated Cross, etc.

Couching is a traditional Japanese embroidery technique that has become popular in all needlework and crafts today, including counted thread, needlepoint, quilting, crazy quilting, surface embroidery, stumpwork, goldwork, crewel, and samplers. Komas are an easy way to hold — and direct — your couching threads as you stitch.

Which threads can be couched?

Couching is an excellent way to use threads that are too thick to pass through fabric or canvas, however you can couch any decorative thread: real metal, metallic, silk or ribbon. Kreinik threads you can couch include Japan #5, Japan #7, 1/8" Ribbon, 1/16" Ribbon, Facets, Petite Facets, Micro Ice Chenille, Heavy #32 Braid, Canvas #24 Braid, Medium #16 Braid, Silk Serica, and Kreinik Real Metal Threads. Kreinik threads that you use to couch these decorative threads include Silk Bella, Silk Mori, Silk Couching Thread, Japan #1, Cord, Blending Filament, Very Fine #4 Braid, Fine #8 Braid. 

Why does the koma have square ends?

They prevent the spools from rolling around or off your project as you stitch.

How do you use a koma?

Wrap your decorative thread around the barrel of the koma, then set it on your needlework to unwind the thread as you couch. Move the koma as you work to keep your thread in proximity to your stitching area. This gives you greater control over your couching, and the wooden spools won't roll off as you work.

Why are komas sold in pairs?

Having two komas allows you to couch more than one thread at a time. This creates exciting embroidery effects and expands your creative options: imagine the dimension you can achieve by layering fibers like round Fine #8 Braid on top of flat 1/8” Ribbon, or placing them parallel as in two rows of smooth gold Japan #5. You can create new textures, trims, borders, and edgings by couching multiple threads, and komas make couching easier.

Metallic trim for adding a level of elegance, texture and dimension to any design. Can be couched on the surface or used as edging. Also available in a wired version. This package is an assortment of 1-meter each of 14 colors.

Interesting note: This trim was used in embroidery on costumes in Game Of Thrones by designer Michele Carragher. 

Metallic trim for adding a level of elegance, texture and dimension to any design. Can be couched on the surface or used as edging. Also available in a wired version. This package is an assortment of 1-meter each of 14 colors of Kreinik 3/8" WIRED Trim.

Interesting note: This trim was used in embroidery on costumes in Game Of Thrones by designer Michele Carragher. 

In the Kreinik thread line, “Japan Thread” refers to a modern version of an historical fiber. Centuries ago, artisans pounded real gold into flat pieces that were wrapped around horse hair, then couched onto fabric for rich, elegant embroidery. Today, we make a similar type of thread but with less expensive materials. If you want to recreate the supreme elegance of real metal thread embroidery, or historical Japanese embroidery, Kreinik’s Japan Thread line is an ideal place to start.

1. Basic Kreinik Japan Threads come in three sizes: 

• Japan #1 
• Japan #5
• Japan #7 
• Smooth, bright, and shiny, they give the look of stitching with real metals.

2. The smaller the number, the thinner the thread:

• Kreinik Japan #1 is super fine, very thin, the thinnest.
• Kreinik Japan #5 is slightly thicker. 
• Kreinik Japan #7 is thicker than #5.

3. Stitch with one, couch the others:

• Japan #1 is a passing thread; stitch through fabric as you would a sewing thread. 
• Japan #5 and #7 are gimps, or wrapped threads, and therefore couched onto the surface rather than sewn in and out of fabric. The metallic foil is wrapped around a core fiber, so if you stitch and and out with Japan #5 and #7, the wrapping may separate or come off. You can use it in long stitches in needlepoint or embroidery, as long as the fabric you're using is an open weave or open canvas, and the stitches aren't compact.
• Japan #5 and #7 can be couched singly or multiple strands at a time for unique effects. Couch with a matching color of Japan #1, or a contrasting color of metallic or silk thread depending on the look you want to achieve.

4. Kreinik also makes Japan Threads in Braids, Ribbons and 3/8" Trim:

• This gives stitchers/weavers/fiber-artists more Japan Thread textures (ie, creative options). A Japan Thread in Kreinik Tapestry #12 Braid, for instance, looks like a checked or serpentine metal thread. 
• They are thicker, stiffer, and more texturized than the basic Japan Threads. They are best in long stitches or stitches that are more open (not compact) in needlepoint, counted thread, crazy quilting, temari, crochet, and surface embroidery techniques. 
• Look for a "J" after the color number, as in 002J or 001J.
• The smaller the Braid number, the smaller the thread. Kreinik Very Fine #4 Braid is the thinnest Braid, for example, and Fine #8 Braid is twice as thick as #4 Braid.
• Kreinik 3/8" Trim, made out of Japan threads, comes in wired version or unwired. This trim is lovely for edging, or couch onto a design (experiment with attaching beads down the center of the woven ribbon). 

5. Kreinik Japan Threads are easier to care for than their historical counterparts:

• This generation of Japan Thread is synthetic and thus less expensive and more readily available than real metal threads.
• They have a percentage of real metal, but are non-tarnishing—as long as you don't wrap them with rubber bands! (see below)
• You can dry clean needlework made with Kreinik Japan Threads.

6. One thing you must NEVER do with Japan threads: put rubber bands around the spools. Japan Threads have a small percentage of real metal in the raw material, which can react with the rubber in the band. It will ruin your thread. 

Side note on couching Japan Threads: A squared-off spool known as a Koma is often used to hold the thicker Japan Threads or other couching threads as you stitch. The Koma won't roll off like round spools, and you can unwind thread as you couch.