I believe Glide was originally marketed as an embroidery thread until Karen McTavish and a couple of other big names discovered it and got the word out. Now they market mostly to quilters but it is a 40wt trilobal polyester. I use glide almost exclusively. I have also used Isacord which is also considered an embroidery thread and the metro/Sigma thread that Dunster linked to. I love the shiny thread in my quilts. It does not overpower and looks beautiful and I find it much stronger than many threads. There is also the added bonus of no lint like is produced from 100% cotton.