Every December I stitch names onto hand towels for people at St. Peter's, and every December I watch someone two tables over at the craft fair fighting her machine because she bought whatever thread was on the shelf in October. I am not a dealer and I am not going to pretend thread is interesting. But it is the thing that decides whether a gift order takes an afternoon or takes your whole weekend, and after two years of stitching gifts out of the spare bedroom upstairs, I have opinions.
I bought the New brothread 40 color polyester kit in November 2023, about a month after my Brother SE1900 arrived. The few Brother-branded spools that came with the machine were long used up on practice towels by then. Everything I have stitched for other people since, the monogrammed hand towels, the fleece baby blankets for my granddaughter Lily, the canvas totes and the cloth napkins, has come off that same kit. Here is what I would tell you about it, in the order it actually mattered to me.
The one kit that has covered every gift I have stitched since 2023
Forty spools of 40 weight polyester, 500 meters each, with a printed color chart in the box. It is what sits on my rolling cart and it is what I would buy again.
Amazon Check Today's Price on Amazon →Ten reasons, in the order they mattered to me
Forty spools get you through a whole gift season without a reorder
Before this kit I had a handful of spools and they were gone in two weeks of practice. When you are stitching twelve towels with different family names on them, you cannot stop in mid December because you ran out of a color. Forty New brothread spools sorted by the chart in their own box is enough variety that I stopped thinking of thread as a supply to manage and started treating it as a shelf I already own.
500 meters on a spool is more than a monogram will ever need
Each spool is 500 meters, which sounds like a spec sheet number until you use it. A three letter monogram in satin stitch on a hand towel takes almost nothing. I have worked from these same spools since November 2023 and the two I reach for most, navy and white, have barely dropped below the shoulder of the spool. For gift work that matters, because the last thing you want the week before the fair is to stop and order thread.
40 weight is the weight a 5 by 7 home machine was built to stitch
The New brothread kit is 40 weight polyester. My SE1900 and its 5 by 7 field are perfectly happy with it. It lays down cleanly in satin stitch, it does not shred at the needle, and it does not fight the tension the way a heavier decorative thread will on a small home machine. I am not going to pretend I tested twenty weights. I tested this one because it was what everyone in the forums used, it worked, and I stopped experimenting.
The printed color chart settles the which pink question in two minutes
A gift order usually starts with a text message asking whether I can do something in a soft pink, and then I am at the cart squinting at spools under a lamp. The chart that comes in the New brothread box shows every color in the set on one sheet. I hold the towel next to it, pick, and get back to work. For baby blankets I go to the same soft pink and light blue every time, and the chart is how I found those two in the first place.
It takes a hot wash on a hand towel and comes back the same
Gifts get washed. A hand towel with a name on it goes into a bathroom and gets used and laundered at whatever temperature that household uses, and nobody is going to treat it gently because you stitched it. The listing says this polyester is colorfast through commercial laundering and bleaching. What I can tell you from my own laundry room is that the navy towels I stitched in 2023 have been washed plenty and the navy has not bled into the white ground cloth. That is the whole test as far as I am concerned.
Kitchen linens with bleach in the wash do not scare it
Cloth napkins and kitchen towels live harder lives than anything else I stitch. I made a set of napkins for a church friend who I know uses bleach in her laundry, and the stitching came through without going pale or bleeding into the fabric around it. Polyester is why. Cotton thread on a bleached kitchen towel is a gamble and I stopped taking it.
One thread line covers fleece, canvas and cotton without changing anything
I stitch hand towels, bath towels, fleece baby blankets, canvas tote bags and cloth napkins. That is five very different surfaces and I have not had to change thread for any of them. The only thing that changes is what goes underneath, one sheet of tear away for most pieces and two doubled up under a thick bath towel. The thread itself does not seem to care what it is sitting on.
The one spool problem I have had is fixed with a thread net
Honesty time, because I would rather you heard it from me than found it yourself. A few spools in my box let the thread slip off the top and puddle on the cart. It happened with maybe three or four of the forty. I slip a thread net over those and the problem is gone for good. I am not going to tell you the New brothread kit is flawless. I am telling you the flaw is small, it is fixable, and it has never cost me a gift order.
It sits in the cart for a year and stitches the same next December
Between Decembers my thread sits in a box on a rolling cart in a spare bedroom with good morning light and no climate control worth mentioning. Spokane summers are dry. Some thread goes brittle or fades in those conditions. The gold I used on a set of anniversary towels in 2023 still looks like the gold I used from the same New brothread spool last month. I did not expect that and I noticed it.
One box, one cart, one trip up the stairs
The kit comes in a storage box that fits the bottom shelf of my rolling cart. Sorting it by the chart took one evening in front of the television with a cup of tea. Now gift season setup is a single trip up the stairs with the box, and everything I need for a run of towels is in one place instead of three. That is not a dramatic benefit. It is the reason I do not dread the first week of December.
I bought the 40 spool kit in November 2023. It has gone through two holiday craft fairs and every baby blanket since, and I have not reordered a single color.
What I'd Skip
If you are stitching caps or anything with a structured front, none of this applies to you and I am not the person to ask. Same for leather and heavy canvas worked with thick decorative thread. I also would not buy the kit expecting the color chart to be a color management system. It is a printed sheet in a box and it does its job, which is helping you find the navy. My friend Marjorie from church uses Simthread and showed me her set once. It looked perfectly reasonable. I have never run it on my machine, so I have no honest comparison to give you, and I would rather say that than invent one.
Forty spools, one cart, and a gift season that does not stall
This is the same 40 weight polyester kit from New brothread that I have stitched hand towels, fleece blankets and canvas totes from since November 2023. If your gift list looks anything like mine, start here and stop shopping for thread.
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