I have been looking at my thread to find out what weight they are and it doesn't seem to be listed on the spools, no matter what type or brand of thread it is. Do you have any suggestions for getting this type of information?

If you purchased Sulky/Gutterman they are on the bottom side of the spool. Madeira would be on the bottom of the spool. Not sure of the others...

I agree with Mermaid. I have 2 Brother machines, 3000 and 4000 and cannot fault them. Very user-friendly. They also have a couple of embroidery machines for less than $2000AUD, usually including software [PE Design or similar name]. Not sure if they do ordinary sewing or not. Check out sales around special times, Xmas, Easter, especially Mother's Day, machines are often better priced with extras, But yes, if your cousin has an interest in embroidery, in 12 months she will be wanting to upgrade, to more features and larger hoops. I have the larger quilters hoops from Hoop-it-All [ more expense]to go with my 4000 as Brother don't cater for these, but I can sew a 12" quilt block in one hooping. What more does a girl want?

Hmmmm. I do have sulky and I have read the spools over and over again and can't find the weight. Is it in some kind of code?

The sulky rayon thead that I purchase at Joanns are 40 wt. Check where you purchased them from.

You may have sorted this problem out by now, but I've just read your post. Am not familiar with this machine, but I'm assuming it has an embroidery unit to attach. I had the same thing happened to me, and sent my Brother - with emb unit - for servicing, only to find it didn't fix the problem. The repair guy didn't realise that the embroidery unit has to be serviced as well, and after doing this, everything worked like new.

I have checked my sulky spools many times over thinking I'm just missing it, and I can't find the weight, and they are from JoAnns. So, yesterday I, of course, ran out of thread during a project and went to JoAnns for more. So I stood there for quite a while reading thread spools. Wow! Was that exciting!
Anyway, their sulky selection has gotten pretty dismal so I checked on others, and the other brands had the weights listed. And a huge selection. So now back to my project.
Thanks for all your help. I love the interaction here.

Making labels
 

I am going to try and stitch out labels and am wondering if anyone has any advice.
I just read an article in a very old Threads that suggested using a sticky stabilizer and grograin ribbon.
By sticky stabilizer I mean the kind that has a paper cover over the sticky.
The article said to hoop the stabilizer, draw a line on the paper for centering the ribbon, removing a part of the paper to stick the ribbon to. It went on to suggest that to do several labels, don't unhoop the stabilizer but tear away the ribbon and cover the hole.
I'm wondering about it holding the next ribbon firmly enough to stitch out.

Suggestions anyone?

I have a friend who made some labels & ribbons using the ribbon.

But I myself have not done that yet.

However I would think that laying out several strips of the ribbon
than doing the alignment and stitching would be "easier" and not
leave you with a "hole" to cover or "sagging" stabilizer.

But like I said I have never done it before so I really don't know
if that would work or not.

You can just cover the hole with another scrap of the sticky stabilizer--stick it on from the bottom & you've still got adhesion.