Happy New Year

To all our customers, we'd like to wish you a very Happy New Year. Just in case you haven't seen our website recently, we have more news. We'll be carrying Lite Steam-A-Seam 2 in packages of 5 sheets. We should be receiving the product by mid-month. We've receive the Wonder Thead Guides they they are selling like hot cakes. I know I sure love mine! It made my life so much easier when I was working on FSL during the holidays. I'll remind you that this product totally eliminates tangling, twisting and thread pile ups. It works with all machines with spool holders - either horizontal or vertical. We tested it extensively and always got excellent results.

You could alternatively do what one of our customers Janice from Okotoks AB has done which was place a vertical spool holder on top of the machine in the little slot provided, put a small red felt pad down on the vertical spool holder and then placed the spool of thread on this so that the thread was standing up vertically. Then she threaded the machine as usual. As explained, the thread was now coming off the spool sideways (as it had been wound on), so that the thread came off without twisting. (When you pull the thread up from the spool or unwind from the end of the spool, it "can" twist on itself which is what causes problems when the thread goes thru the tension "disks". She says if you follow this procedure it will work like a charm. The only issue with this is that the machine has to work harder to pull the thread which may cause more wear and tear on the machine but is certainly an excellent temporary fix.



Some of her other suggestions was to use an size 90/14 Organ needle and reduce the machine speed at 600 SPM.

Thank you Janice for your suggestions! We appreciate them.


On a personal note, I always use a size size 90/14 Organ needle on metallics (no, I don't buy a "metallic needle") and I also reduce my speed at 600 SPM and I get great results.


Have a great sewing year!


Linda

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.

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