How I spotted a fake embroidery kit before buying, plus what to do with one anyway

I got caught by one of these last fall, a hummingbird design that looked gorgeous in the listing and arrived as two skeins of no-name floss and a pattern sheet that was basically smudged ink. I stitched maybe an inch of it before the thread started fraying apart, so it went in the drawer for a few months. What finally worked for me was tracing the printed lines onto a piece of plain muslin with a heat-erasable pen, then using the little iron to vanish the pen marks once I was done. The muslin was stiff enough to hold a stitch without a hoop, though I ended up putting it in a cheap wooden one anyway because my hands cramp without something to grip. My take on the floss is a bit different from yours, I actually kept the two skeins they sent and used them for the outline stitches where color match mattered less, then filled in with DMC from my bin for the rest. The finished piece is lopsided and the bird has one eye bigger than the other, but it hangs in the hallway and I like it more than the photo that tricked me in the first place. Now I check the seller reviews for words like 'flimsy' before buying anything stitched-looking, which has saved me twice alredy.

Back when the only way to get a pattern was mail order, you got what you paid for. These days I just tell folks to do what my mother did: iron dressmaker's carbon onto good fabric and stitch over that. Works for any design you like, no kit required. I had one of those glossy fake listings fool me two years back with a rose wreath, and the photo was so smooth you could tell from a mile off once you knew what to look for. Another trick I use, hold the listing photo up against your lamp light. Real stitched work has shadows in every stitch. That flat, even shine gives it away every time.

That zoom trick saved me a couple weeks ago. Found a sunflower kit I liked, zoomed in, and every single stitch was the exact same shape repeated like wallpaper. Nobody's hands do that. Asked the seller a question about thread count and got a reply that had nothing to do with embroidery, so yeah, dodged that one.

Question for you though, did the floss from that junky kit snap because it was old stock or just terrible quality? I've got some bargain bin skeins at home that shred on the eye of the needle and I can't tell if it's the floss or I'm threading wrong.

Update: tried the dressmaker's carbon trick someone mentioned, since I was already redrawing that junk kit pattern by hand. Worked better than my water-soluble pen honestly, lines came out cleaner. Only snag is the carbon smudges a bit while you stitch, so I found myself rubbing the fabric as I went. Does the smudge wash out of cotton afterward, or do you stick to darker floss to hide it?