Season's Greetings

On behalf of Marathon Threads Canada, we'd like to wish all our clients a very happy holiday season. We will be open during the holidays with reduced hours.

Please don't forget to check out our website regularly as this is where you'll find out about our new products but I'll give you a little idea of what we will be carrying as of January 2009.

• Wonder Thread Guide.
• Totally eliminates tangling, twisting and thread pile ups.
• It works with all machines with spool holders - either horizontal or vertical.

Time flies when you're having fun

Has it been a month already? Wow, how time flies when you're having fun. I bet you're all wondering what we have been up to. Well we're keeping busy getting your orders ready. People tend to want to sew more in winter. I guess it's because it's simply too cold to stay outside too long. I sometimes pack orders so it makes me feel like Santa.

Our new metallic threads have been selling like crazy. We're so glad that you love our new colours.

We are thinking of bringing some new products in. One is Steam A Seam 2 Lite. We're wondering if this would be of interest to you. Lately, we've had some requests for a double sided stabilizer that is light and well this one would certainly fit the bill. We would sell it in packages of 5 sheets that are 9" x 12".


Another product that we are thinking of carrying is the WONDER THREAD GUIDE. Totally eliminates tangling, twisting and thread pile ups. It works with all machines with spool holders - either horizontal or vertical.


Here's a picture of it, what do you think?

Please drop us an email at mail@marathonthreadscanada.com and in the subject please write in SURVEY FOR NEW PRODUCTS.

Please remember that you can send us your orders anytime by fax or email or call our office between 9.30AM and 4.30PM CST Monday to Friday.

Happy stitching

We've been settling in very nicely in our new location. Everyone just loves the new place. The fall shows are now a thing of the past. Well at least until next year. People are busy embroidering and we're keeping busy helping customers and filling orders.

If you haven't looked at our website lately, you should. Our new metallics, especially our iridescent line is just flying off the shelves like hot cakes. (Can you tell that I really REALLY like them?) They are just gorgeous. We have many new products including some really nifty measuring tapes and some small thread box sets. They are perfect as stocking stuffers. We have 17 different sets available, they are all on our website.

Congrats to the winner at the Creative Stitches and Crafting Alive show held in Calgary in September 2008 - Dawn Lee P. from Stony Plain AB .

Happy Stitching!

The new place

Hello everyone!

I'm writing to you from our brand new location at 21 Muir Road (just a couple of blocks away from the old place). The move went pretty well other than a few boxes that went AWOL

We really like the new place. It's quite interesting to see our local customers come into the new place and stop dead in their tracks and say WOW.... I guess that means they like it too.

We have a brand new catalog out (Volume 6), so when you place your next order look for it as it should be with your order.

Michele and Mickey are getting ready for the shows coming up and I'll be holding down the fort. I'm also getting ready for a quilting retreat which I'm rather looking forward to.

Upcoming shows

We're almost done moving! I wanted to mention that we'll be attending the following shows. They're on our website but I thought I'd mention them here, just in case you haven't seen the information on our website. At these shows you'll be able to meet Michele and Mickey. I'll be at the office handling orders and getting ready for a quilting retreat.

Shows for Quilters & Home Embroiderers:

Creative Stitches & Crafting AliveBOOTH #708 Stampede Grounds, Calgary, AB
September 26 & 27, 2008










BOOTH # 649
Fall Show Metro Toronto Convention Centre,
Ontario
October 17, 18 & 19, 2008

See you there!

New metallic colours

Wow, I can't believe how quiet you all are! Since I have a few minutes before the official move, I figured I'd drop by to tell you about your new metallic colours.


Yes, we have a bunch of new metallic colours. Since this spring, we've come out with 11 new metallic colours? Isn't that great?


We've added one more to our twist metallic colours, so now we have a silver/black, a gold/black and and our newest is raspberry/black.



We've added five more to our original line and the new colours are black, green, purple, lavender and light green (yes, all metallics!!!!).



Last but not least are our new iridescent metallics!!! We have a white, a yellow, a blue /purple (my favorite!!), a green and a lilac.

We're moving!

In order to serve you better, we're moving on August 25th. It's possible that the phone lines may be down between the 22nd and 25th but not to worry, we are not changing phone numbers and our website is always working and so is our email so if you can't get thru on the phone, please drop us an email. We'll be around. During our move, it's possible that there may be a slight delay (1 day) in shipping.

Our new address for both the warehouse and the office are:

• 21 Muir
• Winnipeg, Manitoba
• R2X 2X7

We look forward to serving you!

It's been a while - tips on needles again

How is your summer going? Depending on where you live in the country, you're either getting a lot of sun like in Manitoba or a lot of rain like in Quebec.

We certainly didn't intend to be so silent but we've been quite busy. Now that I have a few minutes, I figured I'd drop it for a quick blog fix! My topic today is about needles. No doubt most of us are guilty of not changing our needles often enough (or at least I was) . Sure I'd stick my finger under the needle and it felt "sharp" enough to but that test is not a good one. You see, as your needle wears out, it dulls and shortens slightly so your machine pumps harder to get the job done. Now that I know all that stuff, I change my needles every 8 hours of regular stitching or 100,000 stitches of machine embroidery.. (Note to self, it's about time to change needles on the embroidery machine).

You've all been very quiet, if you're visiting this blog, please sign in so that we know you are reading it. If there's a subject you'd like us to cover, please feel free to leave a comment here or just emails us at Marathon Threads Canada by clicking on email us at the bottom of the page.

BTW, have you visited our website lately? We just got in SIX new metallic colours. Shhh don't tell my boss I told you but there are a few more colours coming out soon. I'll blog about those when we get them in as we don't know what the colours are yet either. Needless to say I'm anxiously awaiting the shipment to see what I can add to my already voluminous thread collection.

How do you know?

Hi everyone,

Have you ever wondered if the needle you're using is too small for the thread you want to use? One way of finding out if it is or not is to thread the needle and see if it will glide easily from side to side by holding the thread taught, if it doesn't, chances are that your needle eye is too small.

Our new specials are on the website and the newsletter is out

Our new newsletter is finally out so check your emails. Our new specials are up and we anticipate a lot of our customers taking advantage of these new specials.

Happy shopping!

Here is a pictures of a quilter by the name of Vivian C. who lives in Winnipeg. Vivian (on the left) does charity quilts for Manitoba Prairie Quilters as well as many of the other ladies in the group, here she is getting several bags of Marathon cotton thread to use in the charity quilts. The lady on the right is Lea F and she's going to be the next President of the guild (well after the election that is). I think we caught Vivian a little by surprise as she wasn't expecting this. Being a member of the guild myself and being the current photographer, I just happened to have my camera with me.

Stay tuned!

Now that the two April shows are done, we're working hard on the newsletter and specials. We're hoping to get this out to you within the next 10 days (hopefully sooner).

Everyone is so quiet, what are you all working on? So stay tuned, you should be getting our newsletter soon.

Shows shows and more shows

We've had a busy month of April with not one but two shows, one was Quilt Reflections 2008 in Winnipeg as well as the Creativ Festival in Toronto. The first picture is of our shipper Larry getting things ready for the shows.

The second picture is at Quilt Reflections 2008. You can see Michele talking to a customer.

As several of our customers have asked us, we've decided to attend the Creative Stitches & Crafting Sept. 26 & 27, 2008 Calgary Stampede, Calgary AB. See you there!

We've also decided to attend the Fall Creativ Festival in Toronto from October 17th to the 19th. If you can make either one of these shows we'd love to meet you.

Please don't forget to check out our website as we update our pages regularly and we've added several new products such as MyThreadBox and black cutaway stabilizer not to mention four fabulous metallics.

Something new and exciting

As an embroiderer using Marathon threads, I can honestly say that it's annoying to manually convert colour charts when I buy from designers. Why they don't include our fine thread, I don't know. Yesterday I was mentioning this to Michele so she decided to do something about it.

As of mid-April we'll be carrying a product called My Thread Box and what this program does is convert your thread colours from other thread brands to Marathon or any other brand but I ask you, why would you want to buy another brand when you have Marathon threads? (grin). I've been using Marathon Threads since I got my first embroidery machine some 5 years ago and I haven't looked back.

Needless to say that this just made my day! No more wasting my time to convert. A program will do all of that for me.

So if you're on the fence about buying Marathon embroidery threads because designers don't put our thread colours, worry no more, this software will help you out.

Linda

Tip on metallic thread

I thought I'd blog about "my" results when working with Marathon metallic threads. Are you experiencing thread breakage?

I got different results depending on which needle I was using for which project. Lately, I've been working with FSL (Free Standing Lace) and I decided to try it with metallics.. I have to say that I was a little apprehensive about it at first. Guess what, it worked! For the projects that I was working on, I found that I got better results with a bigger needle. I tried a metallic size 11 needle and got good results but I decided to test the same project with a size 12 needle as well as a size 14 (sharp needles) and I found that for my projects, I got better results with a size 14 needle. My choice of stabilizer was H2o Gone and it worked great. Now I'm totally addicted to FSL. If you're reading this and have some great sites for FSL, please drop us a line.

Once my project was done, I unhooped it and trimmed it and then ran it under warm water and the stabilizer disappeared almost like magic.

So if you're having thread breakage, my suggestion would be to change your needle to a bigger size and see what happens.

Make sure that your needle is not dull. We recommend changing your needle every 8 hours of sewing on regular sewing projects and after 100,000 stitches on machine embroidery projects.

If you're in the beginning stages of machine embroidery and looking for a great book on it, we recommend Creative Beginnings in Machine Embroidery by Patty Albin which we just happen have in stock. I've been embroidering for 4 years and I think this book is really good. In fact I just bought a copy for myself.

Linda

Hello Hello

We're very pleased to see that people are reading our blog! Keep your suggestions coming, we appreciate them.

We are reading all the comments. If you have any "tips" or projects that you'd like to share with us and would like to see them on our blog, please email us at mail@marathonthreadscanada.com

Michele and Linda

Welcome to our blog

Marathon Threads Canada has now joined blog land. Please come and visit us often as we'll be updating this site frequently.

This is where you'll find out what is going on at Marathon Threads Canada and perhaps even get to see pictures of the people you speak with when ordering, perhaps see pictures of when we attend shows or just what we're working on.

If you have a moment, please comment on our blog, just to let us know that someone is actually reading this.

Hope to see you soon in blog land.

Michele and Linda