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One of my recent sewing discoveries is Gütermann's recycled plastic sewing thread and I want to tell you about it because it's kinda awesome.
Shortly after the pandemic started I went to buy thread from a distributor and along with many other places you'd buy thread, the distributor was also having a hard time keeping it in stock. The regular Gütermann sew-all in color 22 (my most used color) was out of stock until who knows when, but a the color 22 equivalent in recycled poly was available. So I gave it a try.
When I opened the box, the only noticeable difference is looks a little bit thicker than the regular sew-all thread. It is the same weight as the sew-all thread, so maybe it's not really thicker but to me it looks ever so slightly different than sew-all thread. Once I started using it, nothing felt different, my machine happily hummed along, and all was good.
But the best part came when topstitching something for the first time and the stitches turned out fantastic. They came out straight and evenly spaced and just so very lovely!
Any thread is fine for topstitching, and you can buy specialty topstitching thread that is heavier/thicker than all-purpose thread. The thicker thread makes the stitches more visible and it can help them look better because it tends to lay down more evenly and straight on the fabric surface.
This is especially true for more weighty fabrics, or fabrics composed of thicker threads. You might have noticed your topstitching looks a tad wobbly on home dec, upholstery, canvas, or fabrics like Robert Kaufman's Essex. It's not that the stitching line is crooked, it's that the heavier fabric threads are pushing the thinner thread off-course.
Not a big deal, and it's not that obvious unless you look it over carefully, but for those of us doing the sewing, it's just way more satisfying if the topstitching looks fantastic.
The moral of the sewing story here is this thread looks great for topstitching and it's made by recycling plastic bottles, which is amazing. Plastic has it's place in the world, but the sheer volume of it is out of control and we need more ways to recycle it into useful products like this sewing thread.
I have some small spools of this thread available here and then this etsy shop has 1000 yard spools in a bunch of different colors at a great price.
