Gram2five- I'm sorry to hear this! Just had to do a similar thing but mine was tiny FMQ stitches, almost white on white, though. For me black would be even harder. I do have a very fine pointed seam ripper, called "seam-fix" so I was able to pick some of the threads. Then, near the end where some of the tiniest stitches were, I thought of using my very sharp pointed eyebrow tweezers to help get ahold of the threads. That really helped a lot. I know what you mean about fabric damage. I was worried, too, but in the end it was OK. Good luck.