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The Ultimate Thread Guide: Everything You Need to Know to Choose the Perfect Thread for Every Project
“[A] handy, in-depth guide . . . an attractive and useful reference for those passionate about sewing and other thread-based crafts.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)Always choose the right thread! This amazing reference guide features a convenient thread use key that shows the most common uses for the wide variety of threads commonly used by quilters and sewists. This valuable information will help you determine which one is right for your project. Plus, get the inside scoop on thread types and fibers, thread weight, choosing the correct sewing machine needle, and how thread is made.Learn about the most important features of specific threads (grouped by thread manufacturer)The perfect on-the-go referenceTry out new products and new techniques with confidence
106 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 30, 2021
30 people are currently reading
20 people want to read
About the author
Becky Goldsmith
71 books12 followersMost people know me as half of the Piece O' Cake Designs team. With my partner, Linda Jenkins, we have written many quilt books. I am also a wife, mother, grandmother, and daughter. I love my family and friends!
Travel is part of my life - for both work and pleasure. I travel and teach quilting nationally and internationally. It's great fun to meet new people and see new places! My husband, Steve, and I enjoy traveling together - hiking when we can.
With every day, I am more aware of the fact that each day is a gift to be embraced. I do my best to do that with a smile and open heart.
Travel is part of my life - for both work and pleasure. I travel and teach quilting nationally and internationally. It's great fun to meet new people and see new places! My husband, Steve, and I enjoy traveling together - hiking when we can.
With every day, I am more aware of the fact that each day is a gift to be embraced. I do my best to do that with a smile and open heart.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 22, 2024
I was never too crazy about thread. Or batting, for that matter. In fact, it didn’t even matter to me. I would take my pieced quilt tops to any old person in the country and have them machine quilted for me. After about five washes, the quilts would start to disintegrate because the threads were so far apart they wouldn’t hold together. Then, the 100% polyester hight-loft batting the ladies would **always** use to try and save money would **always** clump together in a ball. The quilt would be ruined and no longer usable. But what can you expect for a $25 “quilting” job?
I quickly realized that I couldn’t send my tops off to a “professional” quilter—I simply couldn’t afford it (we’re talking about $300 for a low grade machine quilting job, $700+ for a higher grade, and $1,000+ for professional quilting). When one takes into account that I make approximately twelve quilts each year AND I wanted free motion quilting (FMQ) AND I wanted my quilting threads **at least** .5” apart, you can only imagine what that would have cost. So, I started quilting my own tops. And that’s when thread and batting started mattering. A LOT.
After **years** of trial and error, I settled on an 80/20 cotton poly blend (a favorite of machine quilters), but it took me longer for thread. I ended up becoming the number one fan of Superior Threads’ Omni Quilting Thread (a 40 weight, 2 ply poly core thread or as the author calls it, “Core-Spun Thread.” But if I had a copy of “The Ultimate Thread Guide: Everything You Need to Know to Choose the Perfect Thread for Every Project” by Becky Goldsmith, I could have saved myself a ton of sweat, mistakes, and wasted time. Oh, to be young again!!!
The author informs readers about materials, the weight system, needle sizes, and shows how raw materials are processed to create thread. Goldsmith uses common, no-nonsense language to explain things clearly. For example, when purchasing thread, I’ve seen “Tex” preceding a number (e.g., Tex 30) printed on a label, but never knew what it meant. Goldsmith explains that,
“…In this system, the length of the thread is fixed. If 1,000 meters weighs 35 grams, the thread is a Tex 35…”
While Goldsmith’s book offers a ton of useful information, I believe that the section “Thread Manufacturers” is by far the very best. The author provides a guide to the most popular and well-known thread manufacturers around, including: Aurifil, Coats, Fil-Tec, Gütermann, Iris, Mettler, Presencia, QuiltersSelect, Star, Sulky, Superior Threads, Valdani, WonderFil, and YLI Threads.
For each manufacturer, she includes information on the various lines of thread that each offers. However, this section is brilliant because in addition to the above, Goldsmith provides a “cheater’s chart” for each one so that quilters and other sewers can focus on what their current needs are and can just pick what they need.
This “cheater’s chart” includes: Thread Name, Fiber, Weight and Ply, Use (whether for low shank or long arm quilting, hand quilting, appliqué, and etc.), and Needle Size. By adding these charts, Goldsmith did all of the hard work for us.
While I always use Superior Threads as my go-to choice, if that thread weren’t available, I could always use another brand by referring to the charts. Similarly, if Superior was out of Omni thread, I could also reference the chart to find another suitable option from the same company.
I cannot state enough how excellent this book is. Unfortunately, this book was published decades after I first started quilting. However, this book will no doubt be of magnificent help to new quilters and more experienced ones. My final message—If you quilt or if you’re planning to quilt: Get. This. Book.
I quickly realized that I couldn’t send my tops off to a “professional” quilter—I simply couldn’t afford it (we’re talking about $300 for a low grade machine quilting job, $700+ for a higher grade, and $1,000+ for professional quilting). When one takes into account that I make approximately twelve quilts each year AND I wanted free motion quilting (FMQ) AND I wanted my quilting threads **at least** .5” apart, you can only imagine what that would have cost. So, I started quilting my own tops. And that’s when thread and batting started mattering. A LOT.
After **years** of trial and error, I settled on an 80/20 cotton poly blend (a favorite of machine quilters), but it took me longer for thread. I ended up becoming the number one fan of Superior Threads’ Omni Quilting Thread (a 40 weight, 2 ply poly core thread or as the author calls it, “Core-Spun Thread.” But if I had a copy of “The Ultimate Thread Guide: Everything You Need to Know to Choose the Perfect Thread for Every Project” by Becky Goldsmith, I could have saved myself a ton of sweat, mistakes, and wasted time. Oh, to be young again!!!
The author informs readers about materials, the weight system, needle sizes, and shows how raw materials are processed to create thread. Goldsmith uses common, no-nonsense language to explain things clearly. For example, when purchasing thread, I’ve seen “Tex” preceding a number (e.g., Tex 30) printed on a label, but never knew what it meant. Goldsmith explains that,
“…In this system, the length of the thread is fixed. If 1,000 meters weighs 35 grams, the thread is a Tex 35…”
While Goldsmith’s book offers a ton of useful information, I believe that the section “Thread Manufacturers” is by far the very best. The author provides a guide to the most popular and well-known thread manufacturers around, including: Aurifil, Coats, Fil-Tec, Gütermann, Iris, Mettler, Presencia, QuiltersSelect, Star, Sulky, Superior Threads, Valdani, WonderFil, and YLI Threads.
For each manufacturer, she includes information on the various lines of thread that each offers. However, this section is brilliant because in addition to the above, Goldsmith provides a “cheater’s chart” for each one so that quilters and other sewers can focus on what their current needs are and can just pick what they need.
This “cheater’s chart” includes: Thread Name, Fiber, Weight and Ply, Use (whether for low shank or long arm quilting, hand quilting, appliqué, and etc.), and Needle Size. By adding these charts, Goldsmith did all of the hard work for us.
While I always use Superior Threads as my go-to choice, if that thread weren’t available, I could always use another brand by referring to the charts. Similarly, if Superior was out of Omni thread, I could also reference the chart to find another suitable option from the same company.
I cannot state enough how excellent this book is. Unfortunately, this book was published decades after I first started quilting. However, this book will no doubt be of magnificent help to new quilters and more experienced ones. My final message—If you quilt or if you’re planning to quilt: Get. This. Book.
February 1, 2020
I rarely write reviews but this book bothered me! It seems well-written enough, and for such a short book I'm sure there's a lot of good information here, but it's arranged in such a way as to make it as painful as possible to use.
The subtitle is "Everything you need to know to choose the perfect thread for every project". So you'd think that if you're starting a project, you could flip through this book to identify which type of thread to use. Unfortunately, all of the detailed thread information is inexplicably arranged by thread manufacturer instead of by type of project.
So if I were wanting to make a garment, or do hand quilting, say, I couldn't simply look up "garment-making" or "hand quilting" to find out what kind of thread of use -- instead, I'd have to read through each page for the dozen or so manufacturers listed, looking at each type of thread each manufacturer produces to see whether it was appropriate for my type of project. This is definitely not a quick reference guide!
I gave it two stars instead of one because (a) there is some useful info and (b) maybe I'm missing something and this layout makes perfect sense to experienced sewists?
The subtitle is "Everything you need to know to choose the perfect thread for every project". So you'd think that if you're starting a project, you could flip through this book to identify which type of thread to use. Unfortunately, all of the detailed thread information is inexplicably arranged by thread manufacturer instead of by type of project.
So if I were wanting to make a garment, or do hand quilting, say, I couldn't simply look up "garment-making" or "hand quilting" to find out what kind of thread of use -- instead, I'd have to read through each page for the dozen or so manufacturers listed, looking at each type of thread each manufacturer produces to see whether it was appropriate for my type of project. This is definitely not a quick reference guide!
I gave it two stars instead of one because (a) there is some useful info and (b) maybe I'm missing something and this layout makes perfect sense to experienced sewists?
October 7, 2020
The information this has is good...but I'd have liked a lot more information about how and why to use various types of threads for sewing--why use this kind of thread instead of another, what thread kinds are best for various fabrics, how to get the most out of your sewing projects by using a thread best suited for it.
January 20, 2020
Had some good info for absolute beginners, and the chart in the back was phenomally detailed, but a lot of the pictures felt like filler and the book could have had more information instead.
February 22, 2020
Shorter than I expected. Informative.
Want to read
June 24, 2020~$10 new
Read
June 3, 2021This is an excellent guide for the beginner to advanced sewist; this guide also covers embroidery thread. I found it very helpful.
January 6, 2024
Delightful and super interesting.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews