Thread
The materials an artist uses to make their artwork can make a huge difference on the ease or difficulty in creating the work. I’ve learned in my recent dabbling with painting that there are student quality paints and there are more expensive artist grade and you get what you pay for.
With quilting this rule also generally holds true. The higher quality materials are generally easier to work with and result in a better quality piece of art when finished.
My quilts are made of only 3 basic materials:
- A very dense weave 100% cotton fabric (Pimatex by Robert Kaufman) dyed with Procion MX fiber reactive dyes (these dyes create a chemical bond with the fiber vs. dyes from the grocery store that just stain the fiber)
- A high quality cotton batting (warm and natural). This is the middle layer sandwiched in between 2 layers of cotton cloth.
- Long staple 100% cotton thread used to sew the top design together and also to “quilt” the piece, holding the 3 layers together by adding a secondary textured design over the top of the composition.
An example of quilting stitches in Structures #42:
I use 2 types of thread in my quilting. Most of it is Mettler Silk Finish 100% Mercerized Cotton 50 weight thread. You can find this thread in most quilting stores.
I used to just buy thread at random and hope I had the right colors when it came time to quilt a quilt. I thrive on efficiency and this approach quickly resulted in too many emergency trips to the quilt store to buy more thread so now I have it inventoried in an excel spreadsheet and I try to keep 2-3 spools of each color on hand so I never run out in the middle of the night. With 190 colors I currently have about 500 spools in my inventory.
My thread is stored by color (and then by manufacturer color number) on 4 thread racks above my sewing machine. The mettler threads are ones on the left and lower right racks. The thread in the upper right are rayon threads that I no longer use and are soon to be replaced by more spools of cotton thread.
I’ve been doing a lot of quilting the last few months and not keeping track of the empty spools as I quilt so I’ve found myself running out recently. So last week I finally dumped out my bin of empties and figured out what I needed to replenish. This is about 100 spools of thread.
Fortunately thread was on sale at Great American Quilt Factory last Friday so I saved about $70 on my pile of thread. I don’t buy anything else at the quilt store anymore and I get the feeling not many people buy as much thread as I do because the sales clerks have taken to calling me “the thread lady”. With their inventory system it takes about 15 minutes to check out as they have to scan each spool separately. This is about 150 spools of thread.
I keep one spool of each color on the rack. The remaining spools are sorted by number and stored in bags in a drawer next to my sewing machine. If a spool runs out while I’m sewing I can reach down and pull out a replacement (quickly locating it because the bags are labeled by number, and of course I store the bags sorted in order in the drawer).
These are the spares – about 300 spools.
Recently I have been able to purchase Valdani threads through a friend at wholesale prices. These are gorgeous hand dyed long staple 100% cotton threads, also 50 weight, and they come in colors not available in the Mettler. These are the large spools in the middle on the right hand side and they will eventually displace the rayon threads.
I don’t have very many of these yet but I’m slowly working my way into purchasing all of the available colors of these also. I just ordered 40 more spools of the Valdani and each year I plan on adding more.
I’ve only been able to find 190 of the 196 available Mettler colors also. I need to visit a few other quilt shops some day and see if I can find the missing 6. I’ve never compared my list to the manufacturers color list (which I just found today) but it’s definitely high on my curiosity list to see what I’m missing.
It’s expensive to add a second manufacturer to my thread inventory but I believe in what I’m doing and I know that having more choices of colors will result in my best work. Not having the supplies at hand when they are needed can really slow down or compromise a project. I think it’s worth the investment up front because unlike paint, I can’t just mix up a new thread color when the need arises.
Posted by Lisa in: Quilting Process
Hi Lisa,
You are the most extraordinarily organised person!! This is a great idea and I intend to make use of some of your ideas. Thanks for your fabulous posts.
Jen
Sooo much thread!!! And so organized. I am impressed. I agree with you that running out of thread slows down a project and I hate looking for things so I want to try some of your ideas on orrganizing thread. I will look for some of those spool holders. THanks for the post. Very helpful.
I love my threads too – I mostly use Guttermann cotton threads, sometimes with their silk or polyester threads to broaden the palette and/or surface effect, and love ‘painting’ with them. I do not use up nearly as many as you so do not need to be quite on top of them all so much, but agree about the convenience of organisation. I love to use two or even three different colours at a time in my hand stitching in order to get subtlety of shade, and from time to time use metalics and hologram threads for effect, though they are not so trouble free to stitch with. It is lovely to have them on display in the studio too – I have holders like yours for my cottons and silks, and a shallow vertical tray originally for tiny wee ornaments which I have full of the polyester spools. The fancy spools I have stored by colourway in four plastic drawers, about A3 size, and hanks of thread I keep in various boxes with appropriate colours on their lids. It’s all part of the creative process, and its enjoyment I find.
Great post! but holy cow! 500 spools of thread, what an investment. I thought I had a big inventory on hand, but I have everything out on my desk, not 2-3 spares. Why did you stop using rayon thread?
What a great idea to keep the empty spools to have the re-stock number, never thought of that, but I’m going to do that from now on. I want to get more experimental in my threads, but always seems like I’m in such a hurry that I tend to go with what I know works.
Also, great idea to list blogs by the artist’s name. I can’t remember the artist from the blog title in most cases. I’ll have to change my list.
questions, questions….just remembered another one. Why do you use Warm and Natural? I used to use that, but someone said there were little seeds in it that could ooze natural oils into the fabric, so I switched to Warm and White. Now I can’t even remember if I ever saw any of the seeds though…
What do you use for your bobbin thread? Do you try to match the color of the backing or the color you are quilting with on the front?
I love your work!
Thanks all for the comments. See the next post for some answers to the questions.
Pam – if you hover over the artists name it’ll bring up the blog title.