Yarns for Piping

Yesterday I went to one of Liz Clark's Sewing Academy classes and had such a great time!  I left in such a hurry that I was bummed that I didn't get to visit with a couple of my fellow TITP-ers.  So if you were there, I apologize we didn't get to talk.

Anyway, I was inspired to put up another post here, as it has been quite a long time.  On that last dress I made, I again made piping, only this time I did it better!  In the past I used yarn for my piping, which makes it pretty huge!  This time I used something quite a bit smaller as you can see in the pictures, which is more period-appropriate.  Liz says crochet cotton, very fine kitchen string, or perle cotton is good.

On the left is my old, regular yarn, in the center is the new yarn (trying to remember the size, #2?), and on the right is the smaller #10 crochet yarn, the size that we used to use for making leper/tropical sore bandages.

Again on the left is the regular yarn, on the right is the new thin yarn, the yellow is piping made with regular yarn, and the purple is made with the thin yarn.  Notice the size difference.

The turquoise is pre-made piping, and falls between the two sizes of piping.

Now, if I really want to do it right next time, I'll hand-make the piping, but I don't know if I want to be that accurate!