Coats and Clark 200 Years

This year Coats & Clark thread celebrates its 200^Th Anniversary.  Their story began in 1812 in Paisley Scotland with the conversion of their crippled weaving mills, which once produced luxurious silk shawls, into mills which produced cotton threads.  From there a shortened version of their long history begins with the introduction of a new cotton thread to American women in 1826 by English sailing captains who brought it over from England.  These new threads were then used in the latest women’s fashions all over America.

A soft finished thread was produced by George Clark in 1866 and was the first thread suitable for the sewing machine, revolutionizing the thread industry. George called it “Our New Thread” which became known as O.N.T., a thread many of you still have in your thread collections.

In 2007, as sewing machines became more and more advanced the need for more controlled variables in thread consistency became necessary. The demand was recognized by Coats and Clark who produced a more consistently smooth thread known as Dual Duty XP, which most of us are currently using in our sewing machines, hand stitching and mending. The photo above shows spools from my collection which depicts some of the changes in the labeling and spools as the thread evolved from wooden spools, to golden spools, to white plastic, which is being sold and used today.

Many of us have been stitching with these threads for years not really knowing the history behind such a valued staple in our sewing rooms. I thought I would share just a bit of their history with you and encourage you to go to their website, coatsandclark200years.com, to read the full story. I read a number of different publications who featured stories about the formation of the company over the last 200 years and found each one to be fascinating, the website is the best of the versions.  Along with the story about the company you can also read, “Share Your Stories”, where they invited their customers to write a story about their sewing experiences. I entered one of my stories on June 12, 2012 which you can read by going to my side bar and clicking on the Coats & Clark hot button, it will take you to my story as well as lots and lots of other wonderful sewing stories, give them a read you will have a great time.

Thanks for letting me share the 200^Th Anniversary of Coats & Clark Thread; I really wanted to share it with you for some time now.  Up Next, to honor thread, I will be showing an upcycle sewing project, part 2 of the sweat suit remake, watch for that in a few days, it will be full of how to photos.

See you soon.

Laurette

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