Mother lode of thread...
 

My neighborhood had it's annual garage sale day. At one place I was able to procure an entire plastic tote of good, new thread, on modern spools, for $27.00 (I talked them down from $42 because $27 was all I had on me.) The spools, in every color of the rainbow, were all jumbled together. Mettlers, Sulky, Gutermanns, Dual Duty and Coats and Clark.

Only a few of the spools had been used - you can tell because the thread is loose on those ones. Each one that's loose I've been pulling on the thread to see how easy it is to break and only two really old ones (that have $0.50 on the labels) have broken.

I could NOT believe it!

I'll never have to buy thread again (yes, I know that's a lie but it doesn't seem that way right now). And I don't have room for all of it! LOL (Gee, what a problem.)

So far I haven't been looking at weight or TEX (I hate trying to compare TEX to weight!) and just separating all of it by brand. Then I'll go back through all of them and separate by weight, then again by color, cotton/poly and sheen. And I've already ordered more spool holders.

It made me realize that I'm still so new to quilting that I don't know the differences between all these brands. I mean, is Sulky better at one thing and Mettlers better at another or are they all pretty much comparable?

congratulations. The best thing is just try out the threads and see what you like. I don't know what kind of machine you have but some brands of machines like certain threads better and others are just happy to have some kind of thread in them. Of the brands you listed. I like the mettler thread. but there are different kinds. I generally use Mettler silk finish cotton thread weight 50 for piecing. I also have used the gutterman 100% cotton but find that a little bit more linty. Both of these brands make polyester thread too that works fine for piecing. But what I would do, is go to the websites for each brand of thread and look for some kind of a thread information sheet as most will describe each of the threads they make and the usage for that thread. I generally do not use the coats and clark or dual duty for piecing as those threads tend to be thicker and the piecing does not lay as flat when you press it I do use what dual duty I have left if I need a certain color for binding and don't have it in one of my other threads. Sulky also makes a lot of different threads. I haven't particularly cared for it for piecing as the stuff I had did not seem as strong as the other ones. But the sulky I had did have a beautiful sheen to it and looked lovely for decretive stitching in stuff that did not need to be strong.

This is the kind of information I need - thank you for it! I never even thought about going to the websites. Duh! That should have been my first move. lol

I just spent 3 hours going through all of them just to separate them by brand.
2 spools were cotton - they were the old ones that broke.
I did find 1 elastic thread on a wooden spool and very easy to break.
1 fusible spool in shrink wrapped plastic...no idea how old it is or if fusible thread even goes bad.
2 were Isacord cones - I've not used Isacord before but they're new and in good shape.
A few were Coats & Clark All Purpose cotton/poly, most of the AP's were C&C 100% poly - I grew up using this AP thread but have read it's not as good as it used to be.
60% was Mettlers, the rest was Gutermanns.

There were also 2 quite odd looking, fully plastic, machine feet and some itty-bitty little needles with a name Geschuetztes Muster I'm going to have to research.

Isn't it fun to find great sewing items at yard sales?

Nice score.

Pictures, please! Are the itty-bitty little needles hand or machine needles?

Janey - Neat people never make the exciting discoveries I do.

It sure is. https://cdn.quiltingboard.com/images/smilies/smile.png

I've discovered the itty-bitty needles are vintage Colonial Quilting Between needles - no idea what size because that part of the package has been cut off.

Now I'm working on the odd plastic feet. It has a very mod looking font on the logo that says "Unique". I'll see what I can find out.

Wow! You scored!

Ok, the weird presser feet are for invisible zippers: https://www.ebay.com/itm/172205584037

Now for the last one. And I'm going to need your help on this one. I took a picture of this little metal case so you could see the size against my computer mouse. The inside has a cardboard liner with red velvet on the inside. The red liner in the lid has two slits. What is is for? A tiny pair of scissors that didn't come with it?

If they are threads that you use, that's a great deal!