Thread Matters…

Thread is one of those things I care about.  I hope you do too.

When putting all of this time and effort to piece quilts, quilt quilts – I give a lot of consideration to the thread that does the job of holding piece to piece, or finishes the quilt either by machine quilting or hand quilting, and binding.

Living in North Carolina, I’ve been interested and fascinated by the long standing textile industry here.

Of course, many (most) of the mills are gone now, but did you know that having been in the thread business for 127 years, American & Efird  is the only thread company still with full scale operations remaining in the US?


A&E began in 1891, on what was known as Dutchman’s Creek.  Charles Egbert Hutchison launched Nims Manufacturing Company with six investors. The company was successful and in 1920 was consolidated, with other textile mills, into a new corporation known as American Yarn and Processing Company. 

In 1947, the company bought controlling interest in the Efird Manufacturing Company, located in Albemarle, NC, and founded by J.S. Efird.

After the completion of the merger between American Yarn Processing and Efird Manufacturing in 1952, the company name changed to American & Efird® Mills, Inc. In 1968, the diversified interests of R. S. Dickson combined to form the Ruddick Corporation, a holding company, which became A&E’s parent company.  Under this affiliation, A&E continued to grow, expanding across the country and world.

Since the days of water wheels in the 1890’s, A&E has greatly expanded its global facilities, maintaining pace through technological improvements. A&E was the first textile company in North Carolina to digitally match colors, automate the doffing system on spinning frames, and computerize dye machines.  

As part of the KPS Capital Partners portfolio, American & Efird LLC stands ready to meet future challenges and continue to serve the needs of the industrial sewing thread, technical textile and embroidery thread markets. [source]

After experiencing repeated trouble with other imported 2 ply threads, and finding that I couldn’t hand piece on my hexie quilt or bind a quilt without the thread breaking (It snaps in the center of the thread, not near the needle) I made the switch to Signature 60 weight, which is 3 ply for strength, 100%  cotton, and still a very fine silky thread – and my problem stopped.

Signature 60 wt, 3 ply!

Processed in the USA!

You all know the hexie quilt I am currently hand quilting for my son Jason (Each son is going to receive a hand pieced, hand quilted quilt from their mama.) as I have posted about the hand quilting numerous times – I have had to repair many places where the hand stitching of the hexies has come undone.  The 2-ply thread pops…just breaks.

I have a suspicion that this is due to one thickness of thread when hand piecing, versus two threads together, bobbin and top, when machine piecing.  Whatever it is, I no longer use 2 ply thread for my handwork.  There is too much work in this project to have the thread not do its job.

Signature 60 wt box.

Gütermann hand quilting thread in the tin.

The long respected and well known Gütermann global industrial and consumer thread business was acquired by A&E in 2014.  I am using this hand quilting thread while quilting Jason’s quilt and I’ll be using it on Jeff’s too.

I have no affiliation with these products, I just know that I have been long arm quilting with  American & Efird Signature 40 wt thread since 1995 and have loved it, and am happy to be doing my part to keep a 127 year old industry alive and well in North Carolina.

Landing in Atlanta yesterday, stitching hexies all the way!

Checking to see if hexie border #3 fits!  YAY!

Click to play:

A post shared by Bonnie K Hunter (@quiltville_bonnie) on Mar 18, 2018 at 4:52pm PDT

There were only a few fill in places left to do last night, so I threaded up my needle with the Signature 60 wt (I love the flax color) and added the 3 needed hexies to the border length and began to attach the border.  

It will take several evenings of stitching to get it sewn on, one hexie side at a time, but I had no problem with shredding or breaking with this thread.  It glides through the fabric, it is truly wonderful.

I got THIS far!

You can see where the border is still waiting to be sewn at the far bottom right.  I’ll be back at this tonight.  And yes, some of these fabrics are old old old!  But these are markers on the time line of my life as a quilter.  And it is likely ALL the fabrics in the quilt will be old by the time it is quilted and bound!  This quilt includes many of the fabrics I sewed with while the boys were growing up.  So many memories.

This morning….not moving so fast!  But easing in to this Monday with a week home.

I’m thinking of Quilt-Cam, perhaps mid-week, but I need to get through what I can today to see the light at the end of the tunnel as to when we can do it.  Stay tuned for that announcement.

There are all of the show & share photos from the 3 Illinois guilds to come in tomorrow’s post – much photo editing and video making to do!

First up today?  Now that the Quiltville Store is back up and working, things are coming in and it’s been busy! (Thank you!) I’ll be making sure that all of those orders go out by post office closing time.

Quiltville Quote of the Day!

Antique wool hexagon quilt found in La Salle, Illinois.

Of all the choices you make today, which ones are you going to make differently? Which will bring a better or different result?

Make this Monday Rock!