Just a little look at our green drawer will tell you a lot… no, we’re not partial to one brand of thread. Sulky, Madeira, Magnifico, YLI, and even AdMelody live in perfect harmony here. You’ve seen our bumper stickers… you know, “Coexist.” Once, upon a time, an intern had them all organized by hue, shade, and tint, but that was days ago and this is where we are now.


The truth is, you can argue about the color fastness, durability, and strength of all of these brands, but to us, having the absolute perfect color needed at any given moment trumps all. We’ll let the machine embroidery archivists deal with the faded, shredded mess of our stitch outs in 100 years–immortality was never a goal of ours, and in 1,000,000 years anyway our Sun will breathe its last anyway, thus turning the lights off on our little corner of the universe. So we’re living for the moment.


Having a business where all this thread is a write off and sometimes even a gift is a big advantage, but even if you don’t, we do find ourselves reaching for some of the same colors again and again. Here’s the lowdown on our essentials.

Yup! Here’s the perfect pair… although black and white in the purest form do not really occur anywhere in nature, they’re are bound to be in just about every embroidery design… if only the highlight in an eye, or the darkest single stitched line in a shadow. So be sure to never run out! We buy the big spools.

 To shade through orange to yellow, pick a golden orange, then a gold, a bright yellow, and a pale one.

 Leaves can usually be stitched effectively with just two shades…. but who can resist a hunter green…

 To your blue, add a pale and a navy… purple is already a dark color, so just add a lavender.

 We are not big into browns, not being neutral types at all, but you do need a couple… we love rust, a light brown, and where would we be without chocolate?

So what’s in your thread box? Do you have lifelong favorites or do your colors come and go with the wind? Are you a brand snob? We’d love to hear about it!