i used floss at the beginning and i switched to upholtery. floss is resistant but it will never break in. so your bag will keep it shape longer. BUT now that i use upholtery (single thread, i stitch with 2 then pull one out). my bags are way much softer. but if i want to keep my bag rounder, i just need to play with the colors. you prolly know that all colors of USL arent the same, ie: tulip is weak and black is thick. you need to learn your colors, some colors are good for pents only.
thick pents with soft hexes make great bags imo but if you go thick hexes and soft pents, youll have something harder ( thats what i experimented )
and for your "i see my stitch" issue, like Will_T said, go with a larger template and gather more, you dont need to high gather a bag to "lose" your thread, i gather my pents with a pen cap and i dont gather hard on it. only 1 gather at the end and you are in business.
fyi, upholtery is VERY solid, Tom Mosher told me once:" why do you use that thread ?? you should use floss, its way tougher than your thread, im sure" (something like that) and i gave him a bit of it and he wanted to break it. he couldnt break a single thread of upholtery with his hands, and when i tried, it hurted my hands (not much because i didnt really want to hurt me ... ) you can buy upholtery for like 3$ for 300 yards.
and btw, upholtery IS fabric, so it will break in too
(which causes other problems tho
)
i hope this helps
