Hi, for dying and ecological reasons I would like to use cotton tread on my domestic sewing machine. I mostly sew cotton and linen so it would be god for that. One of issues people raised are that cotton tread is more fragile than polyester ones. But I wonder if it’s a real issue regarding to sewing garments. I remember someone said that the tread have to break before the fabric so the fragility of cotton is not a concern in this case ?
Also when I use cotton tread my machine keep skipping stitches, needle and treading are correct and the machine is free of lint. [edit: the tread is gunhold embroidery tread I use with my embroidery machine] Did someone have an input on this problem ?
It might be that quality of the thread, possibly? I started using cotton thread from Gutterman with my modern singer and have had no issues with missing stitches, or the thread breaking. And seams don’t feel any weaker than ones I sewed with polyester thread.
I have had issues when I tried using older cotton thread that was inherited from my wife’s parents and uncle.
I ask the question on the Bespoke Cutter And Tailor forum and the issue seem to be the tension, my thread is to thick and my needle to small so it increase the tension on the top thread leeding to missing stitchs
I’ve been using lots of Gütermann (Güter is German for “goods”, has nothing to do with gutters) cotton thread on my domestic sewing machine no problem. Works just like polyester thread. Sure, it rips slightly more easily, but you only notice that if you make a mistake and e.g. something gets stuck and in this case it’s actually better if the thread rips than if the fabric rips or the needle is destroyed or something.
The final seams are also slightly weaker but again, no big problem unless you’re doing unadvisable stuff like sewing stretchy fabric with a basic straight stitch.
Having the thread be cotton should not be a problem – but I would not use embroidery thread to sew garment seams on a regular machine because it is spun differently to work with embroidery machine timing. Check the tex of your thread compared to the needle – that is the usual cause of skipped stitches and messed-up timing.