In the past few weeks I have had a lot of questions about thread, so today i will try to answer some questions you all may have. First of all we quilt with a good quality 100% cotton and recommend that to all quilters. 100% cotton is soft and strong, wears well on your projects and doesn't fight the fabric fibres as they are both cotton(that is if you are quilting with cotton). Kayla, Carrie and I love Aurifil thread. And piece with a 40 or 50 weight, 40wt is a bit thicker. Auriful is a high quality Egyptian cotton with long strands to reduce lint and thread breakage. We also longarm quilt with the 40 or 50 wt but find the 40 wt shows up a bit better than the 50 weight. I guess if you don't want to see the quilting 50 wt would be great.
Aurifil thread comes in many different weights from a 6 strand floss, 12wt, 28wt, 40wt, 50wt, and 80wt. we mostly have 50wt in the store with more than 120 of the 270 colours, we have some 40wt and 80wt and are hoping to build our collection very soon. We also have some sets by designers, many designers have signed on with aurifil and have thread colours to match their fabrics. That being said for piecing I use a light tan, light grey, white and a med./grey or brown for everything. I do match colours when appliquéing and like the 50 wt for that. It shows nice and lays flat on the fabrics.
We also love King Tut variegated thread for long arm quilting, we try to keep all of the King Tut colours in stock. We have some magnifico for appliqué, it has a shine to it and if you like hand appliqué, wool work, and stitchery we have some valdani and cosmo flosses and threads.
Lots of time people gasp at the price of a good quality thread but when you think of the cost of your quilting project why wouldn't you spend a couple of dollars on good thread, and really thats all it is, a large spool of thread is only $14.50 and I'm not quite sure how many quilts it makes but I don't take many spools of thread home so I'm guessing about 5-6 projects maybe more depending on size and pieces and how much picking you do:(. And your sewing machine will also love you as thread quality also affects the lint build up.
Last of all here is a bit of a chart to help you pick thread weights.
12wt-hand appliqué, hand embroidery, embellishing
28wt-cross stitching, hand embroidery, hand appliqué, hand piecing, lace
40wt-machine piecing, machine quilting, machine appliqué, long arm quilting, top stitching
50wt-machine piecing, machine appliqué, machine quilting, long arm quilting, top stitching
80wt-hand turned appliqué, english paper piecing, machine appliqué
Have a great weekend
Esther
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