Cheap Thread is No Bargain

 As we do for all new machine customers, I had an embroidery machine lesson the other day with the owner of a new Janome 500e. 


The owner is a delight and eager to learn, but when I saw the thread set he brought in, I cringed. It's a super cheap thread with claims of it being great and trash both in the reviews on Amazon where it usually is purchased. I think it's junk, but didn't want to start off with any negativity.

So I proceeded with my lesson. After going through threading and other basics, we moved to editing and combining designs on the machine. Then of course, we needed to stitch something out. I love doing lettering for a first lesson an an embroidery machine as large letters make for a great explanation of tension.

Top tension here is too tight.

Off we went, stitching with my student's thread. I was hoping to be wrong. Alas, the stitching looked awful. We changed the needle. Tried again. Ugh. So we decided to change the black thread to a different brand of thread in a gold color.


Just look at the difference! The cheap black thread didn't fill the spaces well and it stitched with a lot of loops and noise. What kind of noise? That rattling bobbin sound that makes your finger hover near the start/stop button. We used the same bobbin thread for both stitch outs. 

He said, "This crap is going back to Amazon!" 

This was a case of fast and cheap, but not good.

That thread? Starts with a B ends with -thread. Hate it. Quality is worth it every time.