Quilt Qua
Helping to Expand Your Creative Expression
Check Your Thread and Tension for Better Results
By: Penny Halgren
Bob Purcell, President of Superior Threads, was a guest in our Eavesdrop on a Telephone Conversation. He answered critical questions about thread and sewing machines.
You can get a recording of the full conversation with Bob as well as other experts in the quilting world:
Eavesdrop on a Telephone Conversation
Although the question was about breaking and fraying thread, the answer includes information about setting the tension on your machine.
Q: What causes thread to fray and break?
A: If it’s a good quality thread, the needle is too small or the tension is too tight so we increase the needle size.
Our favorite is not just the size 90, but the type pf needle they have the quilting, the embroidering, the universal. The preferred needle type of the professionals and the educators by far is the Topstitch.
The reason the Topstitch is so nice is that is has a double-sized eye to accommodate decorative thread and the groove that runs all the way up that needle is wider than any other needle and that’s where the thread is supposed to lie so the Topstitch accommodates specialty and decorative thread much better than any other needle types.
So go to the Top Stitch 90 and then if there’s still problems with shredding or breaking we go to the tension.
So we usually loosen it up. The machines they go on a scale of zero, which is no tension, all the way up to 10, which is very tight. We see the most machines ship from the factories in the 4, 5, or 6 range and we run most of any brand on most of our thread we run more in the 2, 2 and a half or 3 range.
If I put a metallic thread on any brand machine the first thing we do is make sure we have that size 90 needle either Topstitch or metallic needle and we drop the tension all the way to a 1.
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Happy Quilting!
Penny is the author of 9 books for beginner quilters and a self-taught quilter of more than 25 years who seeks to interest new quilters and provide them with the resources necessary to create beautiful quilts.
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©2007, Penny Halgren