Scrappy Thread?

I have a lot of thread.  No, let me rephrase that:

I have a LOT of thread!!!!!

Consider for a moment my sewing journey.  It started when I was 8 years old.  Summers spent at my grandmother's house playing with her fabric leftovers.  Making clothes for my Barbie dolls, I didn't have a pattern but I had scissors and a stapler.  Ok, so maybe I didn't do much "sewing" but it was my early adventure into fiber and fashion.  Not much happened between Barbie clothes and 8th grade Home Economics class where I earned a C+ because I refused to wear the dress I made to school - the requirement for an A.

By the time I graduated from High School I had made 2 quilts.  When I left college I was making my own clothes - more out of need than pleasure.  My career, it seemed, would require business clothes that were expensive.  With the help of my mom and eventually a class in fine tailoring I had enough dresses and suits to get by on a budget.  And my thread collection began to grow.  It was innocent at first.  I had neutral color thread for hand sewing quilts (because that's what I was taught) and I had exact matching color thread for sewing with fashion fabric (because that's what I was taught).  When I purchased my first domestic serger I started buying cones of thread - 4 at a time (because that's what the machine required).  And then there was machine embroidery . . . oh the possibilities!!  Oh the thread!!  And then came my long arm quilting machine and the very specific thread it requires.

I have never considered myself a thread-aholic.  I never set out to amass such a collection, it just happened as a result of all my various fiber related passions - the by-product of so much stitching - collateral damage caused by years and years of sewing.  Sewing for myself, sewing for others, sewing for free and sewing for money.  I've made clothes and dolls for kids and grandkids, custom shirts for Sierra Club, costumes for Halloween, costumes for Bible study, banners for church, lots of kitchen curtains and table clothes and too many quilts to count.  All these things were sewn with thread.  So it's not my fault, it just happened.  One Christmas my mom got hold of a dry cleaning supply catalog.  My present that year was various sewing consumables including bundles of  7" and 9" zippers in every color made - and thread - beautiful thread -  large dry cleaner sized spools of thread in so many colors.  It was one of the best Christmas presents I've ever received.

Recently a daughter of mine wanted to do some sewing for herself - what could make a mom more proud?  She needed fabric, which I was happy to supply.  She also needed thread - so I pointed her to the rack on the wall and said something like "if you don't see the color you need there let me know and I'll pull out the storage boxes - if I don't have the color you need, it doesn't exist".  Over the next several months my daughter sewed a few things, a couple pair of shorts, a bucket hat, a patchwork hoodie (very cute) and now she is accumulating a nice collection of estate sale fabric and "vintage" clothes "because repurposing them will be cool".  One day, as she was gathering supplies from my sewing room for her next project she asked "mom, who gets all your thread when you die."?    I laughed pretty hard.  As quilters we kid each other about the stash of fabric left behind when we go.  There are plenty of jokes and cartoons about it too.  But what about the thread?  What happens to all that thread?

I love making scrap quilts.  It's fun, it's frugal, it's a challenge and it's very satisfying.  Because a lot of my quilts are made from scraps, the fabric is often many, many different colors and always with some contrast.  I piece these quilt tops using neutral color thread.  For years I have purchased good quality thread in gigantic cones of 3 basic colors. But why??  

If the fabric is many colors why isn't the thread many colors?  Or at least one "color"?  Why does it need to be neutral?  I have made several monotone or 2 tone quilts over the years. I stitched those with the same color thread as the fabric.  A blue and yellow quilt, for example, could be stitched with either blue or yellow thread.  A Christmas red and green quilt could be stitched with red or green thread.  So why can't a scrappy quilt be stitched with scrappy color thread??  I belong to a quilt block swap group - it's a lot of fun.  If you've never swapped with other quilters I highly recommend it.  Recently the swap block I was making was 15 different indigo squares with the bright white star.  Since indigo is so specifically dark blue I stitched the squares with indigo thread.  When I started to stitch the rows together there came the place where the fabric was white against white - for the star points.  Hummm, the indigo would not work there - so I switched to white thread.  That's when the light bulb went off and a decision was made!!!  I WILL use up my collection of thread to the best of my ability before I grow too old to sew.

In preparation for Hurricane Ian I pulled out a UFO that was put away years ago because it had issues that required a lot of un-sewing and seam rippers do not require electricity.   One problem with the quilt top was the modified piano key borders that needed much more variety in the fabrics - argggg the seam ripper had to work overtime.  The border was made entirely of homespun fabrics - mostly browns.  I wanted to brighten it up by throwing in a lot more blue and green homespun.  So I did, and guess what??  I stitched them with medium blue thread and used up not 1 but 2 almost empty spools.  Now I'm on a mission - next up is the outer border of that quilt, which is red - so red thread it is.

                                                          

I am finding that it's very satisfying to use up the thread on a partially full spool.  I am excited to see how quickly the empty pegs grow in number as the spools of thread start to disappear.  It may take a while before a noticeable dent is made in the overall number but it's a step in the right direction.

Happy Stitching!

Marjorie