Tip Tuesday! Thread Control

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"Tip Tuesday!" - Thread Control

I love learning new things and then sharing that knowledge with my quilting friends. So, every Tuesday I'll provide some tips, hints, tricks, tutorials, shortcuts, etc. that I've learned over the years and share them here on the blog. 

"Tip Tuesday" will be a collection of information about a wide variety of subjects garnered from a large variety of sources.  I am not an expert by any means and do not take credit for being the great wizard behind all of these hints and tips. I will gladly give due credit whenever possible.

These tips will be archived and accessible to you just by clicking on the "Tip Tuesday" tab above. 

Read, enjoy, and be inspired! 

So the title of this post is a bit misleading. 

I'm really not in control of my thread, just like I'm really not in control of my fabric, my rulers, etc. That's a whole different topic that I just am not ready to delve into at this time.  :-)

So, back to the thread issue. Although I typically use So Fine by Superior Threads for my piecing, I use another type of thread for my hand quilting and binding. One thing that has always been an issue for me is the label that is on many of these thread spools. Unless the manufacturer, color number and thread weight is printed on the spool, I often have no idea of that information because the labels come off so easily.

Here's a picture of a couple of spools of my hand quilting thread. All looks good, right?

Well, before you know it, the label starts to rip and the numbers and words are a little challenging to read.

And then the label starts to peel off.

Before you know it, the label is completely wrong and I can  only guess at what the actual color number is. On some of the spools, this isn't a big deal. I can certainly tell the difference between some of the colors just by looking at them, but others aren't so easy. 

When somebody says they want me to use cream thread for the quilting and or binding, there can be some issues. Which cream thread? If I need to buy additional thread because I don't have enough to complete the job, I invariably buy the wrong color. If I only had the label attached or knew the number!

Here's what I use to help resolve this issue.

Yep!  A sharpie marker. And red is the color I like to use. It is much easier for me to see the red than the black, brown or blue.

As soon as I buy a spool of this thread I mark the color number on the bottom edge of the spool. I don't bother with the manufacturer for this thread because I generally only use one type of thread for hand quilting or binding so it's easy to remember.

Here's a bunch of my hand quilting threads, all clearly marked. 

Well, almost all of them are marked.

The label came off the purple thread before I could mark down the number. I never seem to remember to take this spool with me to the store so I can figure out the number and label this spool. :-)

One other thing I do is keep a list of the colors I have, and how many spools of each color. I keep this in my purse so I don't buy colors that I already own. Well, maybe I don't do that too many times anymore.  :-)