Cynthia St. Charles Store

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Quilting Thread Auditions


How does one decide what thread to use for quilting?
Well, auditions, of course!
I usually start by gazing at the area to be quilted until I have an idea of how I am going to go about it. Then I gaze at my thread racks and start pulling all the spools that I think might work.

I unwind a bit from each spool into a puddle in the area to be quilted.
Then, I start removing the ones I don't like.

It is often quite surprising to see what ends up being the final selection.

For this "sun" area - I am going with a Superior Rainbows Polyester variegated thread. I like the sheen of this thread, and the color variation is perfect for this area.

4 comments:

MarveLes Art Studios said...

I love Superior's Rainbows threads; lovely choice! Looking forward to seeing it 'for real' on the actual piece!

The Idaho Beauty said...

Boy, that looks familiar - I just went through that process and still have lots of thread to put away. And to think I used to only have that problem with fabric...

My postcard arrived today - thank you so much! No real bluebirds in this part of the country right now (blowing and snowing and ridiculous windchills, but then you've probably got that too), so this little harbinger of spring is very welcome!

Lisa Flowers Ross said...

This is exactly what I do, too. Do you usually use a polyester thread? What threads do you use most often?

Cynthia St Charles said...

I have a huge stash of polyester thread because my Janome 6500 seemed happier with polyester, however I have added a Juki 98QE - as my primary machine for machine quilting. The Juki seems to prefer cotton - particularly King Tut and YLI. Those are the two threads I seem to be able to use easily without a lot of lint or breakage on the Juki.