MORE THAN · 2020. 3. 16. · Fred’s first company, Speed Stitch. In the late ’70s, at their indepen-dently owned Singer sewing machine store, Joyce began teach-ing others free-motion

44 CREATIVE MACHINE EMBROIDERY cmemag.com

by Ellen March

Watching thread being made, twisted, washed, dyed, and then spun on spools, is fascinating. Understanding the process gives a new appreciation for the small spools we

covet, collect and use for embroidery embellishments. Read on for an account of 25 years of Sulky of America,

and examine the thread you choose with a more discerning eye.

MORE THANMEETS THE

Illustration by Tom Dothage

cmemag.com CREATIVE MACHINE EMBROIDERY 45

THE BEGINNINGThread is quite possibly the most important supply for machine embroiderers. The chosen color, sheen and quality can make or break design stitchouts, so it’s im-portant to choose wisely to avoid disappointment and frustration. The second most important sup-ply is stabilizer, so it’s no won-der that the need for a topper is how Sulky thread was born.

Joyce Drexler, Executive Vice President of Sulky of America, has been a revolutionary force in the home sewing and embroidery world, beginning with her and her husband Fred’s first company, Speed Stitch. In the late ’70s, at their indepen-dently owned Singer sewing machine store, Joyce began teach-ing others free-motion embroidery with an easy, accessible approach. She experimented with various stabilizer and makeshift topper combinations to achieve the best stitchout possible, always on the lookout for products to perfect her and her students’ creations. It became her mission to pass this knowledge onto others and share her findings. In the early ’80s, Joyce stumbled upon a product that would change her life forever: a water-soluble topper distributed by

Gunold, a German company produc-ing high-quality Sulky rayon thread and stabilizers internationally for the industrial embroidery market. This product made the stitches more pro-nounced and kept them from sinking into the fabric pile. Plus, it didn’t change the fabric hand and washed away completely. She was sold. Not long after, Joyce learned of the qual-ity standards of Sulky rayon thread and was compelled to offer it to her students and customers in the U.S. In 1987, Sulky of America, with Joyce and her husband Fred at the helm, was born.

RAYON THREAD HISTORYIn the early 1900s, chemists sought to replicate the look of silk thread. They found a way to extract natu-rally occurring cellulose from wood into a liquid spinning solution and spin it into an extremely fine, smooth embroidery thread. The re-sulting viscose rayon thread looked and felt very much like silk and was easily dyed in a wide range of colors.

With the advent of more so-phisticated embroidery machines, including multiple heads and faster stitching speeds, came the need for stronger viscose fibers. Enka, a fiber manufacturer in Germany, developed a high tenacity, “techni-cal” viscose used for making car tires. As difficult as it is to believe, this thread answered the need for stronger viscose. Quality control and dyeing tests ensued in order to prepare it for embroidery use.

When initially testing car tire vis-cose in a dyeing facility, the thread looked streaky. The dyeing time increased substantially and common rinsing processes didn’t rid the dye of excess color, so the thread lost its colorfastness. One complaint came from a skier who wore a newly embroidered ski cap on the slopes. After it snowed, red dye ran onto his face, and he was mistakenly hos-pitalized! After many more tests, the production difficulties were solved and the new stronger fiber known as Sulky Rayon emerged.

Visit cmemag.com/freebies to watch Fred and Joyce

Drexler with Chris Gunold tell the story of how they

met and began doing business together.

Visit cmemag.com/freebies to watch Chris Gunold tell the

story of how Sulky got its name.


HOW IT'S MADESulky Rayon is made of wood, a constantly regenerating natural resource farmed for Enka under ecologically sustainable forestry practices. At the Enka factory, the process begins with a cross-section of shredded and compressed wood pulp, much like a big sheet of paper. It undergoes a chemical

process in a closed system to re-duce contaminants and pollution. The cellulose derived from this wood is spun into one long-chain fiber that’s never knotted end to end (1). After spinning onto a large spool, the fiber is washed, again in a closed system to recycle and reuse as much as possible, and dried. Then the fiber is twisted and

respun onto a different spool (2), which is sent to one of the manu-facturing partners, the Beerli AG twisting facility in Switzerland.

At Beerli, the pure Enka fiber un-dergoes another twisting process (3), and then two fibers are twisted together and spun onto new spools that are prepared for dyeing (4).

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(It’s in this facility that Sulky’s poly-ester thread line, Polydeco, is also twisted and dyed.) Each thread type, i.e., rayon, or viscose as it’s sometimes called because of its viscosity, and polyester, has a dif-ferent dye recipe and therefore has a different spool color. Deci-phering the dye recipes is a true art and careful consideration is

made to ensure the colors remain the same batch after batch, year after year (5).

Once on a color-coded spool, the fiber is wrapped in a permeable plastic before dyeing (6), and then sent to another of Sulky’s manu-facturing partners, the Faigle dye house in Austria. The solid-color

thread is dyed from the inside out and the outside in for even color distribution. Each spool is placed on a large cone that sits on a cir-cular apparatus (7). When about 666 spools are loaded, the appa-ratus is lowered underground in a dye vat (8). When dyeing fiber for multi-colored spools or variegated thread, the fiber is wrapped and

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positioned on a bar over a dye bath (9). The fiber is partially dipped into the bath, and then the bath is either altered with more dye of the same color or drained, cleaned and filled with another color. The process continues until the entire fiber is dyed (10).

Here comes the drying process. Huge high-frequency driers, much like high-tech pottery kilns, house the spools until dry (11). Then sample cards are created to visu-ally compare the dyed thread to its original batch (12). If the color

is even slightly off, corrections are made before sending to the Gunold facility in Germany.

At Gunold, the dyed fiber is spun onto Sulky spools. Depending on the size and shape of the spool, a different machine is used. The pro-cess is very fast and very fascinating (13). Watching the machines wind the finished fibers onto multiple spools and spit them out into a large bin would be mesmerizing and relaxing if it weren’t for the noise! (Earplugs are a must.)

Sulky Rayon small snap spools have an imprint of the thread name, type and color number (14). Sulky king-size snap spools have a sticker on the end for differentiation (15). The snap spools are imprinted be-fore spooling, while the stickers are added to the king-size spools after spooling (16). The spools are boxed (17), and then sorted into shipments bound for the U.S. and your favorite fabric store or quilt shop (18).

QUALITY ASSURANCEWhen choosing thread at the fab-ric store, it’s common to choose a

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AN 8-DAY TOUR

Visiting four facilities in three countries in order to experience the entire thread manufacturing process has obvious advantages. It’s necessary to travel the coun-tryside to go from place to place, stopping in interesting places for food and drinks along the way. Here is where we went on the Sulky 25-year anniversary trip—places you won’t want to miss if you happen upon them.

Day 1: The group consisted of: (A, left to right) me and my

husband; Fred and Joyce Drexler; the contest winners, Mary and Ron; Pattie Lee, Vice President of Consumer Relations for Sulky of America, and her husband Kenny; and Jason Prater, Presi-dent of Sulky of America, and his wife Alyson. After a long flight, we landed in Munich and stayed at Hotel Blauer Bock in the heart of the city. A farmer’s market was across the street (B).

Day 2: We took a guided tour to explore the city, eating

weisswurst and pretzels along the way (C). Then we trav-eled to Schwangau to visit the Hohenschwangau (D) and Neuschwanstein castles (E).

Day 3: Riding in two minivans, we traveled to St. Gallen, Switzerland, where the first embroidery machines were in-vented in the 19th century (F). We toured the city, including the St. Gallen Cathedral (G), Library and Textile Museum (H).

A B C

D

F

G E H


Day 4: We rode a gondola to the top of Säntis mountain, the 12th highest mountain in the Alps (I). Then we drove to the Beerli twisting facility in Thal. After an extensive tour, we traveled a short distance to Hard, Austria to the Faigle dyehouse. Then it was back to Germany to stay on Lindau island for the night (J).

Day 5: We traveled to Rothenburg and visited its well-preserved medieval old town.

The name of the town is thought to refer to the retting process of flax for linen production. They have Christmas year-round at a number of Christmas village shops, so naturally we stopped in for some ornaments (K).

Day 6: Another castle to visit in Miltenburg (L), followed by a walking tour of the old town and Kalt-Loch-Bräu and Brau-haus Faust breweries. Then we drove to Obernberg for dinner at our hotel, the Karpfen.

Day 7: Finally we visited the Enka factory and spent many hours there learning about their fiber and thread manufacturing process (M). We then visited the town of Aschaffenburg, visiting yet another castle, the Schloss Johannisburg (N).

Day 8: Our bittersweet return to the U.S. took almost 24 hours including the shuttle, air travel and layover—a small price to pay for a fantastic journey.

I

J K

M

L N


brand based on the thread color, rather than quality. The quality is often not evident when the thread is tightly wrapped around a spool. But for embroidery especially, it’s important to consider colorfastness, tendency of thread breakage and fuzziness or fraying over time. After spending precious time and money on a project, we want to make sure it will last.

Sulky thread undergoes testing after dyeing and before spooling to ensure high tensile strength. The fiber is threaded into a machine that exposes it to constant stress, pulling one strand at a time until the thread breaks (19). This machine measures the thread’s resistance to the stress, ensuring a quality product that has an even form and structure with a soft, warm and natural look and feel.

ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECTSThe wood used for cellulose extrac-tion by Enka is harvested from plantations (not rain forests) that fol-low sustainable forestry practices. The trees aren’t grown in unsuitable re-gions, which would result in excessive water consumption in arid environ-ments (one of the biggest objections to cotton). The cellulose fibers are renewable, biodegradable and sus-tainable (unlike polyester, which is derived from oil, and are dyed with biodegradable dyes and chemicals).

Last year alone, Enka invested 1.2 million Euros in the environment to lower emission, energy and water consumption and meet rigid Euro-

pean environmental regulations. They continue to make improve-ments yearly to follow the highest standards of ecological sustainability.

25 YEARS STRONGTo celebrate 25 years of Sulky of America, Sulky held a contest among its Facebook fans. A random winner was chosen to receive the trip of a lifetime: an all-expense paid trip for two to Germany, Aus-tria and Switzerland to visit the Enka, Beerli, Faigle and Gunold fac-tories where Sulky thread is made. One second place winner received $2,500 in Sulky products and 25 third-place winners received $100 in Sulky products.

The winner of the contest was Mary Magnum, who came along on the trip with her husband, Ron. Here’s her account of the trip:

ELLEN: What was your initial thought when you were contacted by Sulky and told that you won an amazing trip?

MARY: I was really surprised and excited. I couldn’t even remember entering the contest. It sounded too good to be true. I was driving home from work in the snow and pulled over so I could write down informa-tion about the trip. Many people told me they thought it was a scam, but I never really thought that.

ELLEN: Do you consider yourself a sewist, quilter, crafter, or something else? What types of projects do you sew most often?

MARY: I’m a quilter. I used to make most of my clothes and my kids’ clothes, but I’m now a quilter and try to make a quilt every couple of months. I usually make pieced quilts from a pattern, but once in a while I make my own pattern. I sandwich the quilts on my quilting frames, pin, and then do the quilting on my sewing machine. I also do hand ap-pliqué for quilts and wall hangings and usually quilt them by hand. I’m like many other quilters and have many unfinished quilts. I try to finish a couple of the UFOs each year.

ELLEN: Had you ever used Sulky products before the trip?

MARY: I never used any Sulky products until I won the trip. Before

19


we went on the trip I bought some rayon Sulky thread in plain colors and variegated. I made a quilt for my husband out of his old neckties and did the quilting using decora-tive stitches and Sulky rayon thread. It turned out beautiful.

ELLEN: Did you learn anything new about Sulky thread?

MARY: I learned so much beginning with the fact that it’s made out of wood. The process begins in Ger-many and the honey (liquid viscose) starts as 42 strands that are wound onto spools. It then goes to Poland, Switzerland, Austria and then re-turns to Germany where it’s spun onto spools prior to being shipped to the U.S. for us! I also learned that

the labels are prepunched so that the glue doesn’t get on our machine spool holders. The labels stay on the spools so I don’t have to won-der what color my thread is when I need more.

ELLEN: What was your favorite part about visiting the factories?

MARY: It was fascinating to see the volume of thread being processed at each of the four factories we toured. It all starts out white and shiny and is on such large spools. There were rows and rows of thread being wound, stretched and twisted onto different sized spools for processing. I loved seeing how wood is turned into such a beauti-ful thread.

ELLEN: What was your favorite part of the trip overall?

MARY: I really enjoyed the Textile Museum in St. Gallen, Switzerland. There was an old embroidery ma-chine that’s powered by foot pedals and can create 52 embroi-dered pictures at the same time. And it still works! We saw some beautiful embroidered pieces and clothing. Upstairs there was a quilt exhibit that we toured and viewed such beautiful quilts.

ELLEN: What was your favorite country out of the three you visited?

MARY: Germany was my favorite probably because we spent so much time there. I really enjoyed visiting several old Bavarian towns where most of the buildings are older than our country. I loved all the cobblestone streets, huge ca-thedrals, old unique buildings and beautiful flowers. The countries were all beautiful and green. I liked the Alps in Switzerland and riding the gondola up to the snow and driving through the countryside on narrow winding roads through small villages. §

Visit cmemag.com/freebies to view a slideshow of the Textile Museum in Switzerland, including

photos of one of the oldest embroidery machines.

If you haven’t tried Sulky rayon thread, here’s your chance!

Visit www.shopsewitall.com to pur-chase a 6-spool assortment of Sulky rayon favorites, SKU: SIA94224, including most of the colors and bob-bin thread needed to stitch the five designs pictured at right. Along with the thread pack, you’ll receive a spe-cial offer code to download the five designs for FREE—a $15 value! Plus, let us know how you like the thread by emailing [email protected], and you’ll be entered into another draw-ing to win a stabilizer assortment from Sulky of America. The winner among all emails will be chosen at random on Dec. 15, 2013 so hurry and get stitching!

GIVE IT A TRY

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MORE THAN · 2020. 3. 16. · Fred’s first company, Speed Stitch. In the late ’70s, at their indepen-dently owned Singer sewing machine store, Joyce began teach-ing others free-motion