Sunday, August 16, 2015

Wonderous WonderFil Weights

I have used a lot of WonderFil InvisaFil 100 weight polyester lately.  I enjoyed it.  But it got me to wondering what would happen if I tried using thicker thread instead.  I have two sampler packs of Wonderfil Spagetti 12 weight cotton thread that I bought once upon a time in Houston.  I decided it was time to take off their wrappers too!

My question I wanted to know for this block was this:  what do the thinnest and thickest threads (that will go through the needle and don't have to be bobbin drawn) that I own look like in the same block?

I started with adjusting my machine for Spagetti thread.  I put in a size 100 topstitch needle (it was the largest I had and the thread wouldn't go through a size 90 microtex needle).  I grabbed my spare bobbin case that I used for making adjustments and set it for Spagetti thread.  I keep a spare that I adjust tension on so that my master bobbin case never gets messed up and I always know it will work on most of my threads.  This really comes in hand when I want to bobbin draw or work with thin/thick thread.  You can see from the picture below that I put some pale pink nail polish on the outside of the bobbin case so I will always know which case is which.


Next, I set my top tension lower to 1.0 and tried sewing a single blanket-stitch.  The machine gobbled the thread up into the throat plate...not good.  So I tried straight stitch.  Here are my results:


After many attempts I decided it was time to switch my bobbin thread to something thinner.  I put in lime green so I could see what was happening better.


The bottom was first, then the middle, then the top stitching example.  To achieve the top I set my upper tension to 0.5.  Now I was ready to try it with one layer of stabilizer (rinsaway) and one layer of fabric:


I was happy with this result, so I went for it.  Since the thread was so thick, I used a single blanket-stitch instead of a double blanket-stitch.

Here is the final block:


The turquoises are stitched in WonderFil Spagetti 12 weight cotton thread.  The purple petals with blue dots are stitched with WonderFil Deco-Bob thread.  The two dots and central purple petal are all stitched with WonderFil InvisaFil 100 weight polyester thread.  You can really see in this example how thread weight affects the outcome.  The Deco-Bob and InvisaFil stitching were done with a double-blanket stitch and they are still not as thick as the Spagetti thread.

After working with Deco-Bob I went and read about it on WonderFil's website.  It turns out that it is an 80 weight polyester thread.  That's thin!  It surprised me because I expected it to be more like a 40 weight.

Overall, I decided that I like the Spagetti thread, but it was too thick for this purpose.  It was easier to do a double blanket-stitch with a thinner thread to get a thicker line.

I need to order some more colors of Deco-Bob!

Suzy

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