Friday, March 18, 2016

Monofilament Thread Samples


That's for me! I'm 63 today.

I'm also boycotting Instagram today due to their proposed algorithm changes. (See previous post.)

So because I thrive on social media, you get an extra dose of me today! Ha, ha.

Today I'm preparing to go to Jacksonville to give a lecture and workshops to the All Star Quilters. The topic I'll speak and teach about is "Domestic Machine Quilting."

I'll give a Powerpoint (Keynote on a Mac) presentation about a domestic machine quilter's journey, show a dozen or so quilts, and then teach two half-day workshops.

Wanting to to provide thorough information, I recently collected spools of monofilament thread, also known as invisible thread, to quilt a test sampler.

These are the brands/types I compared:
I'd also like to add Superior and Sulky monofilament threads to my sample piece. 

With each monofilament thread, I used a different color of Aurifil 50-weight cotton thread in the bobbin. The quilt top fabric is a solid dark gray color. I thought it would show the threads more clearly, but it was difficult to photograph.

Beginning at the bottom... Aurifil. It sewed well and didn't require any tension adjustment. I like it.

Invisafil was a surprise. First, because it's such a fine thread. Really more like a thread than a fine nylon. Second, it has a silver transparency to it, rather than being clear. It's more shiny-visible than the other threads, but pretty. After using it, I learned that Invisafil is a 100-weight, cottonized-polyester, and that it comes in 60 colors! So perhaps it really isn't fair to consider it on the same level as other invisible threads. However, I do like it and would like to try other colors.

Sew-Art gave me the most tension problems. In the picture below, you can see the hot pink bobbin thread that pulled to the top, even after loosening the top tension to zero.

Transfil started well, but in a couple places the orange bobbin thread pulled to the top. I made adjustments to the top tension and a little later the bobbin thread appeared at the top again.

Wonder quilted beautifully. To be perfectly honest, I had only the smoke-colored version of this monofilament thread. It looks nice on that steel gray fabric.

Believe it or not, this is the solid lavender-colored backing. It too turned out to be a difficult color to photograph.

From the bottom up are Aurifil (purple) and Invisafil (green). Both look good.

Sew-Art (hot pink) and Transfil (orange). On the back, the tension problem with Sew-Art is apparent. The bobbin thread even feels stiff to the touch. Transfil looks very nice.

Transfil again (orange) and Wonder (blue). I like Wonder.

It's difficult to draw any firm conclusions except to say I probably won't again use Sew-Art brand. I could easily quilt with Aurifil, Invisafil, and Wonder. And I remain curious about Superior and Sulky. Linda

21 comments:

  1. Someone at quilt guild this morning recommended Superior. Haven't tried it myself. Have used Sulky after seeing it recommended somewhere, but I'm not enough of an expert to say anything other than it seemed okay.

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    1. Hi! I can't reply to your comment (you're a no-reply commenter), but I wanted to acknowledge what you said about those monofilament brands. I have used Sulky, but either finished my spool or lost it! Need to get both though, so I can complete my sampler!

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  2. Happy Birthday (again!) Linda! Enjoy the day with a little special 'me' time...
    You are very thorough in your research and teaching. One day we will sit together and share our sewing knowledge. But I guess you'll be doing most of the sharing!

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  3. Happy Birthday Linda. It sounds like you have a busy day so I hope there is some celebration time in there.

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  4. happy birthday Linda xxxxxx hope you have a wonderful day - sounds like a fab day planned doing what you love :)

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  5. Happy Birthday dear Linda! I hope you are having a lovely day and a wonderful year ahead. I haven't had much luck with monofilamnet threads on my Bernina 820, maybe I have to try a different brand. Thanks for your input.

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  6. oh Happy Birthday TO YOU!!! A good experiment you've got going there!

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  7. Happy Birthday Neighbor. Hope you had a wonderful day. Enjoyed reading about your mono-filament exercise.

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  8. Happy Birthday Linda. Thanks for the great experiment with the threads. I am debating whether to do a new pattern by machine or hand, so your test has come at just the right time. :-)

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  9. Happy Birthday Linda and wishing you a fun day. I enjoyed reading your post. I have also used a transparent thread from Japan called Fujix Monocolor and it was a nice thread to use on the machine.

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  10. Interesting info about the threads. Still in the practice phase of FMQ, I'm just starting to introduce thread knowledge into the mix, si I really appreciate your efforts! It's funny how, when I began this FMQ journey, I was so overwhelmed with it all, but now everything is just falling into place nicely. Have a wonderful day! XO

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  11. Great info here! Another one you may want to try is Essence by Fil-Tec. It comes in both smoke and clear. I love Superior's Monopoly also.

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    1. Thank you for the suggestion! I've never heard of this brand, but should I come across it, I'll buy some. By the way, you're a "no-reply commenter" so that's why I can only respond to you here.

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  12. Well I'm a day late, not unusual by any means, but hope it was a wonderful birthday! And thanks for the info - very interesting. blessings, marlene

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  13. Happy Birthday to another young 60-something!! Thanks for the experiment with these threads! I've wondered about the various brands. And I hope IG hears the message! Algorithm based sorting of posts makes no sense!

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  14. Thanks for this excellent post. I've only used invisible thread once. It was Sulky and worked perfectly!

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  15. How did I miss your Birthday??? Belated happy birthday to my special blogger friend. Good luck next week, can't wait to hear details.

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  16. Belated happy birthday! In general, I'm a big fan of Superior threads, but when it comes to monofilament, I prefer YLI's Wonder thread. It's softer, less visible, and easier to work with than Superior's MonoPoly.

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    1. Hello Valli. You're a no-reply commenter so I'm thanking you here for your opinion of Superior versus YLI. I did like the Wonder, a lot, so perhaps that's the brand I'll keep using for a while. Thanks for taking the time to mention this.

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  17. Happy Birthday! Wonderful job testing all of the invisible threads. Though some just totally didn't work for you, I think it's hard to make any of the others a favorite. It all depends on the use of the final piece. But it's nice knowing what the thread will look like, and how it will perform.

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