Tag Archives: thread

Ideas

Invent Me a Thread That Changes Colour As Needed

1 Comment

As a maker of many garments which contain multi-coloured solids, the thing I hate the most about it is having to change threads so often! All the more because the way I sew, I serge all the seams and edges, and sew them down, on top of sewing the pieces together first to have a guideline for serging those seams. You might not think this thread matters but it does against white if the white isn’t opaque enough you can’t see anything dark beneath it, like gabardine.

So this led me to thinking how cool would it be if someone invented a thread that changed colour as needed?

Piping dream you say? I say nay!

They have all kinds of thermal materials these days you can heat to get different colours, and retain it once the heat is removed. I’m sure someone can be spun to threads. Heck, never mind just threads. They can probably get you spider web strength threads that would slice through your body if you were to get your clothing caught in something, or rip it, rather than break any seams!

And how would it change colours as needed, you might ask?

Easy. Have a little heating cube element the thread passes through before it hits the needle. You program the colour and it comes out that colour. Just make sure you change the colour some small distance before hitting the next colour to get it close.

Now, you don’t need this to change to every seven shades between each of the seven colours in the rainbow. No. Just every shade of the rainbow is enough. Or even a variety of darks and lights for each spool you buy. But just some variety would save a lot of time and annoying nuisance!

Just imagine!

Unfortunately, that’s all you might be able to do about it now. But one day, they’ll have this and sewing multi-coloured garments can be fun again!

Actually, now that I think about it, I studied once under a professor of materials science. Maybe I’ll call her up and see how she’s doing and what she thinks about this piping dream of mine. 🙂

Advertisement
Questions

What Percentage of Threads Do You Waste?

Leave a comment

Just a sewing thought on a stormy day here in Nova Scotia.

You use thread to sew. At the end of the seam, or whatever it is you are sewing, there are some thread you tie off and/or cut off. You have to, in order to do your sewing practically.

But have you ever thought how much that wasted thread is of all the thread used?

It’s not an easy thing to figure out or estimate, considering it varies a lot since every time you sew something, the amount differs a bit, but what you leave at the end to cut off is probably similar length. Then you have “weighted” situations, like serged seams, that are 3 or 4 times each regular sewn seam with one thread at a time.

Then depending on style for each of us on how we sew and what we cut off, the answer will differ for us all.

There’s probably an answer range that would encompass the answer for most of us, but I’m not sure what that would be, even, though it wouldn’t be something ridiculous like 100% or 50% even.

Still, I look at the thread wasted as I finish each seam and cut off excess to put in the garbage, and often wonder. But whatever the answer, one thing I can do about it is to try and waste as little as possible. It’s only a tiny difference here or there from what I might have left otherwise at the end of my seams. However, like anything each one of us can do that helps the world, it’s the accumulation of small bits over time that will ultimately make the difference.