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