Thread

I never really thought much about thread ... until recently.
For machine piecing I'm really liking Aurifil  - I like how it works with the fabric and it comes in a variety of colors and weights (you can find it at my favorite local quilt shop!)  After trying different types of thread  I have decided I like Superior Thread's Bottom Line for my needle turn applique - it is so thin you can't even see it! Which is the whole point! After lugging around my threads I came up with a novel idea! Instead of carrying around all of the spools of thread - which I'll be honest - when I started doing needle turn applique that is what I did ... it dawned on me to fill a bobbin with each color and just carry the bobbins! Which turned out to be so much easier! Here is my little travel case (actually an eyeglass case!) for my Blue Hawaiian Hibiscus Quilt....

Everything I need to applique:
snips, Thread Heaven, thread, thimbles and a needle threader....
Now where did I put my glasses?

Then there is the whole thread storage thing ... how do you store your thread? My mother used to throw all her thread into her sewing tin! I would dump them out arraign them by color only to go back later and find them all jumbled up again! When I started back at quilting I got one of those thread racks that stands on your sewing table - but that just kept getting in the way. Then I discovered the racks that hang on the wall - so I used that ... of course arrainging all the threads by color. This worked for a while, but once I started acquiring different types of threads (metallics, Bottom Line, Aurifil, cotton etc) I thought OK I'll arrainge them by types first then by color!! Then I decided I was wasting too much time playing with thread and not enough time actually quilting with the thread! So I stopped rearrainging my thread and started using it - until last summer when I acquired an old wooden two drawer Chadwick's Spool Cotton thread container that came from my father-in-law's father's store (back in the early 1940's I think)

My mother-in-law used it for her phone, address books, paper pen and pencils ... I always thought it was funny that she had a beautiful piece of sewing history and she hated to sew! Every time I used I think of her and smile. But now I'm back to playing with thread ... some times I just open the drawers and look at all of the colors! I feel like a little kid in a candy store!

I thought "I have enough thread" ...

Then I attended Libby Lehman's Thread class and saw her thread work...

and decided.....

I need More thread!

After all if we can never have enough fabric then I suppose

we can never have enough thread!