Piecing Threads

Both cotton and polyester work beautifully for piecing, and the choice comes down to your personal preferences and project needs. Dream Seam 50 wt. cotton is perfect if you love the traditional feel and want your thread to match the fiber content of your cotton quilting fabrics. Made from 100% Egyptian-grown extra-long staple cotton fibers, it creates flat seams that press beautifully and has a soft, matte finish that blends naturally with fabric.

50 wt thread is the sweet spot for piecing because it's fine enough to create flat, low-bulk seams while being strong enough to hold your quilt together for decades. Think about it - when you're piecing a quilt top, you're creating lots of seams, and those seams often cross each other at intersections. Heavier threads, like 40 wt., add too much bulk at those intersections, making it harder to get perfectly flat, crisp points. Really fine threads, like 60 wt., can get lost in the seam allowance and might not provide enough strength for quilts that'll be used and washed repeatedly. 50 wt thread gives you the best of both worlds: it nestles into your seam allowances without adding bulk, presses beautifully flat, and creates seams that are plenty strong for everyday use. It works perfectly with standard 1/4-inch seam allowances, ensuring that the stitches blend into your fabric for a clean and professional look in your piecing. Whether you opt for Dream Seam 50 wt. cotton or Perfection 50 wt. polyester, you’ll be using a thread weight that quilters have relied on for generations to create beautiful pieced quilts.

For piecing with 50 wt. threads, such as Dream Seam or Perfection, use a Topstitch #80/12 needle. The Topstitch needle style has a larger eye and a deeper groove than a Universal needle, which helps protect the thread from friction and create smoother, more consistent stitches. The #80/12 size is perfect for quilting-weight cotton fabrics - it's sharp enough to pierce cleanly through fabric without leaving visible holes, and the eye is large enough to accommodate 50 wt. thread comfortably. This combination prevents thread breakage and helps you maintain consistent tension throughout your piecing. Many quilters keep a pack of #80/12 Topstitch needles on hand as their go-to piecing needle, and it's the needle we recommend most often for accurate 1/4-inch seams.

Yes. Both Dream Seam 50 wt. cotton and Perfection 50 wt. polyester work beautifully for piecing and quilting on the same project. Using the same thread throughout creates consistent tension and stitch appearance. If you want more visible quilting stitches, step up to a 40 wt. thread like Majestic or QuiltMaker for the quilting portion while keeping 50 wt. for piecing. Many quilters keep 50 wt. in both needle and bobbin for piecing, then switch to 40 wt. on top with 60 wt. Precision in the bobbin for quilting.

Dream Seam 50 wt. cotton is excellent for FPP because it perforates the paper cleanly for easy removal, presses flat with a hot iron, and creates strong seams that hold up during paper removal. Perfection 50 wt. polyester also works well and is completely lint-free. Both threads are fine enough to stitch through paper without creating bulk at seam intersections. Use a shorter stitch length (1.5-2.0) for FPP so the paper tears away easily. One quilter called Precision her "favorite thread I have ever used with FPP" for its consistent tension and clean stitching.