Need embroidery thread advice
 

My daughter is planning on getting an embroidery machine soon. At this time I'm not sure which model, but possibly a Babylock. I would like to get her a bunch of thread as a surprise. I used isacord for the little bit of embroidery that I did years ago. Sewforless.com has kits of isacord w/ 30 1,000 yd spools for 124.99 which includes shipping plus a plastic storage container. They are advertised as the most popular colors. What do you think? Is this considered a good price and brand or are there better options? Thanks!

You may want to check discountembroiderysupply.com. Good prices on many threads including Isacord and free shipping

Or maybe pick out an embroidery packet and purchase all the different colors for that packet.

Don't buy a chest of colors. I had one and never used 3/4s of them. I'd give her a basic palette of colors and a gift certificate for the extra ones needed if you don't feel the basic palette is enough. Also give her a good color conversion thread chart.

Here's an opposing opinion:o. I bought a complete set of colors (I think there were 200+) and for me, it's one of the best purchases I made. Many embroideries I do have subtle shading that use weird taupes, beiges etc. I would have never purchased a lot of these on my own. I also like the fact that if the mood strikes me at 9:00 Sunday night, I can embroider anything I want because I have the color. It probably boils down to what types of embroideries she will be doing. If it's mostly monograms, and children's designs, which usually have large areas of solid color, then get her a basic group of colors. If she's going to be doing more intricate designs, then a full set would be in order.
Another thing is that some machines are particular about the brand of thread. You might want to just get a couple spools of different brands to see what she and her machine prefers, then a "gift certificate" for more when she's had some time to play.

I'm lucky that my machine loves all thread. Which is a good thing since I paid so much for it, it shouldn't be picky. I've heard on here alot of machines are though so I wouldn't buy large quanities of any certain brand until she finds out. I love Robinson-Anton thread and its only 399 a spool on Sears website. I also love Floriani, Jenny Haskins, Prencia and I have a few others. Anna Bove who sells designs has lots of specials on thread as well. When I buy thread the rule I live by is I buy a base color and then buy one or two in different shades, just enough difference for shading. Most designs that I've done normally have some type of shading involved so this rule really helps. I'm lucky that my Viking came with an organizier and it has a thread manager in it so that I can put in all my threads by color and company and print out an inventory list to take shopping. I also allows me to tell the machine to pull all of the thread color choices from my thread list instead of the ones it was created with. My machine will then go thru my list and list all of the colors from my list that closest matches the ones orginally intended from the maker of the design. I love that feature, saves so much time. Have her google search for free designs as well, there are tons of them out there and lots of free tutorials. This is such a nice thing you want to do but chose different thread colors, a few of each and chose different brands so that she can decide which ones stitch out the nicest. For FSL, if having a sheen isn't an issue I've even got the serger cones to work, this is great because its so much cheaper and if Im making baskets for the kids I don't want to spend a fortune on something that my kids will end up tearing up. She also needs not only thread but stablizers, different needles, normally emb needles of different sizes and top stitch needles also work great. Viking has tutorials on these things that tell you what they each do. Which would also be a nice gift; make her a notebook with different tutorials on stabiziers, thread,needles etc. rnkdistributing has a great workbook for stabilizers, what each one does and when to use it. You are a good mom and she'll get hooked so fast; I did

Back when I got started in machine embroidery my husband purchased
a 160+ spool set of ThreatArt from ebay. Some spools worked ok with
my machine but MANY did not.


Now days I PERSONALLY only use Floriani thread now, with the exception
of some variegated & metallic sets that I have. I am working on getting all
the colors.

Some people make not like having the wide variation of colors, but when
working on a LARGE color change (15+ colors) it is great to be able to have
the range of colors in each grouping so you can get the shading effects.

Of course this IS just my own personal thoughts on embroidery thread.

There is a thread started that has OVER 2100 posts for us machine
embroidery enthusiasts. If more than 1 day goes by without a post
being made it WILL get buried/lost on MANY pages back and of course
some people don't look beyond the first 2-3 pages (me included).

I HIGHLY recommend anyone interested in the thread to bookmark
it so it is easier to find.

Embroidery machine thread

If you are going to purchase sets, I would recommend Threadart.com they are very reasonable and I do believe they have a sale going on right now. It's the best price I have found.