Finally, a quilty weekend!

Sep 04, 2007 3 Replies

I have two quilts pinned, a large one for a nephew and a lap quilt for a friend. Since I want to learn about McTavishing, I started with the smaller quilt. I guess I was a little afraid of trying the big quilt on my 301 first.



McTavishing is fun! I had a ball with the practice piece, and went right to work on the lap quilt. Got four large squares done in a freehand Victorian feather and then ****ran out of thread!**** None available at Joann's and all the nearby stores that carry quilting thread were closed for Labor Day. Bummer!



Found the thread I am using online, and ordered 4 spools. I will never again underestimate how much thread I will need!



BTW, I understand that old thread is not good to use. Does anyone here have a ballpark idea of "How old is too old?" A couple of years old? Ten? Twenty? Just curious. I have quite a few old spools of thread, some dating back to the 1970s when I made a lot of clothing. If the thread is not useable for quilts, is there another good use?



I went to Joann's several times this past weekend, and it was a total mash. I went to work for a few hours very early on Saturday, left work at 9:15, arrived at Joanne's about 8 minutes (five miles) later, found my fabric right away, then stood in line at the cutting table for half an hour for my one cut of fabric and again at the register for another half hour. Got home, two blocks away, a little after 10:30. I was pretty testy. I must say, though, that the good folks at Joann's never lost their tempers with difficult customers (and there were quite a few!) and were friendly and good-natured every time I went in. We may love to hate Joann's, but I must say that our local store has friendly, knowledgeable and accommodating staff who aren't afraid to steer me to a more or less expensive item more suitable for my project, pull a coupon from under the table to save me money, or refer me to another store for whatever I need. For those of us on limited budgets, Joann's is very useful.



Hope you all had a grand weekend, and I also hope we get all our projects done in time for Christmas!


On Tue, 4 Sep 2007 07:28:06 -0500, Carolyn McCarty wrote (in article ):

I'd say once it starts to get "brittle" and "dry", it's no longer good. Might kind of depend on the thread. I have some spools that are at least 10 years old and still okay. If you can't use the old thread for quilting, you could use it for basting for hand quilting. Though I admit, I prefer to pin baste whether I'm hand or machine quilting.

I'm just aiming to get my quilts done for the guild's show in March. Though I do have a couple of Xmas projects too.

Maureen

I just read the newsletter from Superior thread, and it was stated that thread should be good for around 20 years IF STORED CORRECTLY! Storage suggestions were away from light and dust. Wall racks are OK if the thread is covered.

Wow, that's good news, Susan! Thanks so much!

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