SuperBOBs - pre-wound Bobbins

True confessions. 

"I hate winding bobbins!" 

That's why I love the Bottom Line pre-wounds from Superior Threads. I know that some people just love winding their own bobbins and more power to them. Bottom Line comes in 3,000 yard cones  just perfect for gals that like to wind their own.

But my own bobbins often ended up wonky and usually I would mis-calculate how many were needed to complete my project.  I'd be stuck in the middle of quilting and need to stop and wind some more bobbins. Grrrr!! Anyway once I tried the SuperBOBs pre-wounds I was totally hooked and I've been using them ever since.

Bottom Line pre-wounds hold 118 yards of thread. That's more than twice as much as on the bobbins that you wind yourself. So I can quilt twice as far as I did before without running out of bobbin thread. These factory wound bobbins are even and perfectly tensioned too. They will run smoothly even at high speeds.

Have you ever noticed that plastic bobbins keep on spinning even after you stop? That can cause bird's nests underneath. These SuperBOB pre-wounds are cardboard sided which gives just the right amount of resistance to keep the bobbin from spinning on once you've stopped.

Bottom Line SuperBOB pre-wounds come in 46 colours. Whether you're looking for neutrals, pastels or brights,  you'll be able to find the perfect match for all your sewing, quilting, binding and appliqué projects.

Bottom Line real thread colour card £3.50 available from ore  shop Machine Quilter site 

Now we've got the Bottom Line pre-wounds
 up on our shop.machinequilter website.

You might get hooked too. Then you'll have to think of something else to do with your old metal bobbins! 

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Bobbin threads come in all kinds. Let's take the 'good' first. If you are keen to match fibres for piecing cotton fabrics, MasterPiece is perfect. MasterPiece is 100% extra-long staple Egyptian grown cotton in gorgeous shimmering colours. Being a fine weight it works well in the bobbin. You can wind your own from the spool or enjoy the convenience of pre-wounds in packs of 144, 72 or 12 bobbins.

For machine quilting there are other equally good choices. Bottom Line is a polyester thread designed specially for the bobbin, but it's also great for detail quilting, embroidery, applique and binding. It's a very fine smooth thread that comes in 50 colours. I prefer to use Bottom Line in the bobbin for machine quilting. I found, particularly in a heavily quilted or embroidered project, that cotton in the top and the bobbin made it stiff. But Bottom Line in the bobbin keeps even a very heavily quilted project soft and supple. The slick surface of this filament poly makes it a good choice to pair with specialty threads like metallics or heavy cotton threads because it won't grab or snag the top thread. Again Bottom Line comes in large spools that you can use to wind your own bobbins. It also comes in pre-wounds for ordinary and long-arm machines.

This heavily quilted project from the Superior Threads Seminar would have been stiff with cotton in the bobbin. Bottom Line kept it soft and supple.

Now for the 'bad and the ugly'. The more I learn about thread the less willing I am to run poor quality thread through the thread path on the top of the machine. Linty threads mess up the machine, threads that have coatings on them to get rid of the lint gunk up the machine, and weak threads will break and cause all sorts of tension problems. Since I care about my machine and my quilting projects, I now have a pile of threads that I'm no longer willing to risk running through the top of my machine. But it seems a waste to just throw them away.

The good news is that many of these poor quality threads will work fine in the bobbin. Bobbin thread doesn't have to go through the tension discs or the needle, this means that, as a rule, bobbin threads cause much less trouble than top threads. So for fun, less precious projects, I can use these up in the bobbin. For anything important, I'm sticking to the good stuff.

Down Under

Forget Australia. This one's about bobbins and bobbin threads. Tucked away under the thread plate, bobbins and bobbin threads are sometimes out of sight and out of mind. But the right bobbin thread can make a big difference.

I have a confession to make. I hate winding bobbins. That means I love using pre-wounds. First of all, pre-wounds can hold up to 3 times as much thread as the bobbins that you wind yourself. When I'm in the middle of a machine quilting project, I really hate to have to stop and change the bobbin - it stops the creative flow. So being able to keep going for longer is a big plus for me. And when the bobbin does eventually run out, I have another all ready to slip in. I don't have the aggravation of winding a bobbin myself. It's pure convenience and I'm grateful for it every time.

Precision factory winding means the bobbin thread is wound evenly. And that's the second reason to consider pre-wounds. Even winding is a big issue for many machines. An uneven winding can cause thread breakage and other tension related problems. At the Superior Threads Seminar last week we needed to wind some bobbins for a project. All the gals at my table were laughing at the wonky bobbins that our machines were coming up with. We gave up in the end and used some pre-wounds.The precision factory winding on the Superior Threads pre-wounds is so tight and even that you can take off the cardboard sides and the thread still stays on the bobbin. Hard to believe but true!

Most of the machines on the market (70%) will take pre-wounds. You can follow this link to the Superior Threads education pages to check on the compatibility of your machine. If you're sewing machine savvy, you can also just try one out. If you're in the UK contact me (use this link http://www.machinequilter.co.uk/ to the website and click contact us) and I'll send you a freebie to try out. If you're in the USA Superior Threads offer a 'Try me Special' of 6 pre-wound bobbins in assorted colors for $4.00. I use a Janome 6600 for piecing and a JUKI TL98 P for free-motion machine quilting on my table-top New English Quilter frame. Both machines take pre-wounds without any problems. Next post I'll talk about what type of threads are good to use in the bobbin and why.