Thread Heaven | Part 1- Cotton
You may remember a previous post where I talked about being a thread snob when it comes to cotton thread. And you also might remember that my personal fave is Aurifil Mako 50 wt. Well, I do use other cotton threads occasionally, especially if I'm looking for a specific colour in a smaller spool, and, like most quilters, my thread stash isn't exclusively cotton. This time I'm going to talk about my other favourite threads and how I use them.
Thread comes in different weights and the weight you choose depends on how you plan to use it. The main thing you need to remember about thread weight is that the higher the number the thinner the thread. Thread weight is not always clearly marked on the spool. Take a look at the above photo of Aurifil thread again. Under the Aurifil name you will see the numbers 50/2...the first number is the thread weight and the second number shows thread ply (or how many strands are put together), so this is a 50 weight thread with 2 plies. (purple #1243, yellow/orange #2145, turquoise #2810, fuchsia #2535, green #1147)
Aurifil is what I use for the majority of my piecing, but there are a couple of others that I love for the actual machine quilting. King Tut by Superior Threads and Silco by Wonderfil are my favourites because their variegated thread is great quality and comes in the most luscious colour combinations imaginable. Variegated thread has a multicoloured dye pattern throughout the entire spool. Depending on the brand some colour changes are very short and others are longer.
King Tut variegated is a low lint 40 wt thread with 1” colour changes. My favourite one is called Cleopatra (#921) and I also use Nile Delta (#934), Arabian Nights (#935) and Cairo (#932) quite often, but they have so many other amazing colour combinations to choose from that it's hard to pick a favourite. The sample block below shows King Tut Cairo on the lime fabric and Aurifil on the grey.
Silco Sunset SCM-27, my all-time favourite variegated, is a lint-free 35 wt thread that can be a little troublesome to use because it gets “spinny” when you feed it improperly on your machine and can cause thread breakage. The thread should not be fed off the top of the spool unless a thread net is used. It's better coming off the side of the spool instead. Below you can see that it highlights the fabric beautifully and really shows off the free-motion stitches.
Check out this post where I show you how to tackle pesky, troublesome threads like Silco and metallics. Kinda like having kids...once you know how to handle them you won't have so many problems!
Next week join me for Thread Heaven Part 2- Polyester and Metallic.