As many of you may know, I love using vintage fabrics, and vintage threads.  I inherited hundreds of threads from Grandma and Nana, and buy old thread at op-shops whenever I see it. I estimate that 90% of my sewing is done with vintage thread, and  I’ve never had a problem with it. No breakages in the machine, no breakages in clothes I wear (including ones I made over a decade ago, and still wear), no funny pulls or tension issues. Yet over, and over on the internet I hear ‘never use old thread’, ‘thread has a shelf life’, ‘vintage thread just isn’t strong enough and doesn’t work right’, ‘old threads are thicker’. I use new thread for commissions and when sewing with students, so I’ve been able to compare new with old on the same machines, and even on different projects in the same fabrics.  I’ve tested and tested, and just can’t find any substantial evidence that using old thread gives a substandard result compared to new thread. I do match thread to fabric …

I tried and tried, but there is no way to avoid it.  The title of this post just had to be a pun.  There were no other options – everything I thought of, even if I was purposely avoiding pun-ness, turned out to be one anyway. It’s quite fitting though, because if there is one thing you can be guaranteed to encounter at WoW, it’s puns.  This year we were treated to ‘Hive and Seek’ (inspired by a beehive), ‘She Shells’ (shell bras), ‘Totally Sheepish’ (made of wool), ‘Dress Circle’ (a dress made out of circles), ‘I Stitch, Sew I Am’ (a celebration of embroidery), ‘Laser Gaga’ (I’ll leave that one up to your imagination), ‘Hairs to You Too’ (made of hair), as well as ‘Avante Garden’  & ‘Florabundance’  (wearable gardens), among other. So wait, what the heck am I talking about? I’m talking about the  The Brancott Estate World of WearableArtâ„¢ Show, the world’s biggest showcase of avante-garde, not-quite-fashion, not-quite-theatre-costume garments (in the broadest sense of the word garment).  It’s also a totally NZ …