Quilt Qua

Q: What is the shelf life of thread? And should you keep thread in the refrigerator to keep it from drying out?

 

Bob: These days a good quality thread made today whether it’s cotton or poly of course can last for hundreds of years. But the ones that we kind of worry about are cotton thread because we have grandma’s or great-grandma’s spools of thread in our stash and the thread that they were making 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago didn’t have the raw material quality or the processing technique near what we have today.

So if I had a spool of thread cotton even 20 or 30 years old I wouldn’t use it today in something important. Of course if it’s a 40 or 50 or 60 years old I would save it just for the fun of looking at this old-fashioned spool but not use the thread.

However cotton thread, high quality thread made today because the raw material fiber is so much enhanced and the processing is so advanced I’d buy a spool of cotton, good cotton quality thread today I wouldn’t hesitate using it 50 years from now.

 

Penny: What about drying out? Do they dry out at all or is that just an old wives’ tale?

 

Bob: They do slightly. I hear one bad rumor going around is you put your thread in your refrigerator or freezer to hydrate it.  And if any of us have ever looked under the frig we have a drain pan there because we know that the refrigerator sucks moisture out of things, that’s why we have what do they call it a freezer rot, freezer burn.

Freezer burn, or if you have vegetables or something in the frig for a week, they dry out so putting thread in the frig does the opposite of what people think it’s going to do and but people swear by it and people tell me that they do it and it works and I say well if it works for you fine but you don’t need to be doing that.

Drying out. Yeah a dry climate thread you think of cotton as grown in a very dry climate. It’s made for dry climate. I just don’t see it drying out. Humidity on the other hand doesn’t seem to hurt it either and thread is used in every part of our country and every country in the world and nobody has ever been able to prove that a dry climate or a humid climate is either good or bad. It’s just ok everywhere.

 

 

Click on the Superior Threads logo below to hear Bob's answer.

 

 

You can order the full audio CD of the Eavesdrop on a Telephone Conversation with President of Superior Threads, Bob Purcell, and hear all of the answers to the questions Enquiring Quilting Minds want to know about thread.

Happy Quilting!

Penny is the author of 8 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