Each year, Road to California offers $5.00 Lectures: one-hour classes presented by vendors featuring their popular quilting techniques, tools, and trade secrets.
At Road 2020, Eric Dressler of Sulky of America, engaged students with thread education tips using Sulky’s needles and threads.
Who is Sulky of America?
Sulky of America sells over 4,000 products that include their popular thread lines and stabilizers. The company was founded by Joyce and Fred Drexler almost 30 years ago. A priority for Sulky of America is thread education. Remarked Fred Drexler, “Educating consumers has always been a top priority and our extremely strong focus on education through the years has caused Sulky to become the most recognized and asked-for name in decorative threads.”
Committed to quality, Sulky of America only uses raw rayon fibers made by ENKA in Obernburg, Germany. They have been tested and proven to be the very highest quality raw goods produced anywhere in the world.
Sulky also has a strong presence with community involvement. Fred has had a 44-year involvement with Rotary International, being involved in hundreds of local community projects. Following Hurricane Andrew in 1992, Sulky invited sewers all over America to “Share their Stash” with Hurricane Andrew victims. Thousands of people ultimately did, which netted two full semi-trailer loads of sewing machines, fabric, patterns and every other imaginable sewing tool and supplies. Their caring ways continue to support community outreach.
Newest Products
Sulky of America introduced two new products at Road 2020:
Filaine, a 12-wt. acrylic thread that comes in 129 colors. Fibers can be brushed out to create a fuzzy look in projects
Sulky recently became a distributor of Organ Needles, a company that was founded 100 years ago in Tokyo, Japan. All Japanese-made sewing machines (like Janome, Juki, Brother and Babylock) are “born” with Organ Needles.
Sulky of America at Road 2020
Sulky’s thread education $5.00 Lecture was given on Friday afternoon by Eric Drexler. Eric has spent 35 years in the sewing industry. The last 13 years he has been working with Sulky as an educator. Besides being a teacher, Eric is also passionate about free motion artistry.
Eric shared that quilters should not be afraid to “mix up their threads in their projects.” The ideal thread weight which Eric says is “good for everything” is 30 weight – a medium weight thread. He also added that whenever you change the thread in a project, you should also change the needle.
During the thread education session, Eric emphasized the following thread rules for quilters:
- A spool of thread should be able to turn freely in a machine. This keeps the thread from curling.
- Loosen the tension two numbers before threading your machine.
- Use a 90-14 topstitch needle. Should your thread “kink,” it will still be able to pass through the larger eye.
- Which color thread to use? Have it match the back of your quilt.
- Thread weight does not have to be the same on top as in the bobbin. Just be sure to adjust the tension.
Thank you Road 2020 Sponsor, Sulky Thread of America, for sharing your thread education.
