If you're like me and regularly rummage through the haberdashery drawers of your local charity shop (or if you have an industrial machine or overlocker, which I don't, sniff...) then you will no doubt have come across supersized cones or spools of thread. I bagged a job lot of these last year (for a mere £2!) in really useful colours like cream, white, navy and black. I thought my thread needs would be sorted for the next 5 years, such was the massive volume of the stuff. I was a wee bit scuppered though when I came to use them. The holes in them were way too large for even the extended thread spool on my machine. They would just rattle around in a scary manner and come flying off. Hmmm. B*****ks! I tried sitting them in a tea cup behind my machine which kinda worked but not brilliantly....
Then the other day I had a eureka moment. It was a double whammy eureka moment in fact. (oh yes peops, value for money on this blog!) Not only did I sort out my huge thread cone
problem challenge ;) I also found a use for one of the many empty cotton reels that I just can't bring myself to throw out. It wedged up in the base of that cone nice and snug, which meant it now sat perfectly safely on my machine, and I was stitching away happily for the rest of the afternoon without fear of running out of thread until at least 2013...
I wish I could say the same for my bobbin thread. When oh when will I learn to check the amount of thread on my bobbin before embarking on a 2 metre hem....
This is a fab idea! Good thinking. I usually pass over those thread cones. I'm always a bit dubious about the quality of the thread in them though, I'm a committed Gutermann girl.
ReplyDeleteCool idea. My machine came with a separate spool attachment widget that sits on top of the machine for large spool attachment. Yours might have too? Be wary of those cheap massive thread spools, the last time I used a $2 spool on my machine it cost me $80 in serviicing- the massive amounts of lint/ fluff generated by cheap thread is super bad for your machine, it gets into the parts which need to stay oiled, gums up everything and cleaning it out removes the lubrication that is essential for your machine to function normally without wear and tear. The service person was shocked that I'd used the cheap and nasty stuff on a good machine XD Now I know better..
ReplyDeleteOuch! Sounds nasty! I don't think these were originally "cheap" spools of thread. They seem to be pretty good quality, and I guess I just got lucky that they got donated to our local charity shop. I will take heed though. The first sign of excessive fluffing and they're outta here ;)
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The funny thing is that I had figured out the same thing as you ages ago but had totally forgotten about it until I saw your post. Great timing too because I was just puzzling about how to make a big spool work on my machine and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have figured it out again on my own. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteHe he! That's the sort of thing I do....forget my own eureka moments. Do you know I regularly read back through my own tutes to remind myself how I did something?! That's why this blog is so handy!
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I do exactly the same thing with my large thread spools when using them on my regular sewing machine.
ReplyDeleteAwesome idea. And, yes, I always find huge cones of thread in thrift stores but never knew how to use them.
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