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Riley Blake's 60 Weight Cotton, Color Matched to Confetti Cotton Solids
Confetti Cotton thread is Wonderfil Efina, custom dyed for Riley Blake Designs and named after Riley Blake's Confetti Cotton solid fabrics. It is a 60 weight, two-ply, 100 percent Egyptian cotton thread on 1,500 yard spools, and the line runs to 40 colors.
The cotton is extra-long staple, double gassed and mercerized. Gassing burns the fuzz off the surface of the thread, and doing it twice is why this one leaves so little lint in the bobbin case. Mercerizing gives cotton its sheen and lets it take dye deeply, which is why these colors read as saturated as they do.
Why 60 Weight Is the Whole Point
Thread weight counts backwards. A higher number means a finer thread, so 60 weight is noticeably thinner than the 50 weight cotton most quilters piece with, and much thinner than a 40.
Thinner thread takes up less room inside the seam allowance. On a simple quilt that hardly matters. On a star block where eight seams meet at one point, it is the difference between a flat intersection and a lump you have to fight to press. The same logic is why it suits appliqué: a fine thread lets the stitch sink into the edge of the shape instead of outlining it.
The honest limit is the other side of the same coin. This is a piecing and appliqué thread, not a thread for quilting you want people to notice. If the quilting itself is meant to be the design, you want something heavier from our quilting thread and bobbins instead.
Confetti Cotton and Konfetti Are Not the Same Thread
Both are made by Wonderfil, the names are one letter apart, and we sell both. This confuses people weekly, so here is the difference.
Konfetti is Wonderfil's own line: a 50 weight, three-ply Egyptian cotton on 1,000 meter and 2,500 yard spools. It is a sturdy general purpose thread that will piece, quilt, serge and topstitch.
Confetti Cotton is the Riley Blake collaboration on this page: 60 weight, two-ply, 1,500 yard spools, with colors named to match Riley Blake fabric. It is the finer of the two, and it exists for the jobs where thread bulk is the problem you are solving.
If you want a general workhorse rather than a fine one, browse our full range of cotton thread.
The Color Names Come Straight From the Fabric
Ballerina, Peony, Barn Red, Riley Navy, Le Créme, Sand Dollar, Songbird, Butterscotch, Charcoal. If those sound familiar it is because they are the names of Riley Blake's Confetti Cotton solids, and the thread was dyed to sit against them. If you already know which solid you are piecing, you have already chosen the thread.
Matched is not identical, though, and thread behaves differently from fabric. A spool always reads lighter than the same color does once it is stitched into a seam, because you are looking at a bundle of it rather than a single strand.
The practical rule: when you are between two shades, go one step darker than the fabric. Thread lighter than the fabric shows itself. Thread slightly darker recedes into the seam and disappears. Our Confetti Cotton solids are the fabrics these threads were dyed against, and the rest of our solid quilting fabric sits alongside them.
Needles, Tension and the Bobbin
A fine thread wants a smaller needle. A 70/10 or 80/12 works well, and a microtex or topstitch point gives the cleanest stitch on quilting cotton. An 80/12 universal that is already in the machine is fine for ordinary piecing.
You can absolutely put it in the bobbin, and matching top and bobbin is the simplest way to keep tension honest. If your stitches look loose or the top thread is being pulled through, ease the top tension down slightly rather than tightening everything. Fine cotton usually wants a little less tension than you are used to, not more. Our prewound bobbins cover the same job when you would rather not wind.
Shop Confetti Cotton Thread at Quilted Joy
Quilted Joy is a destination quilt shop and skill-building studio in Louisville, Kentucky, serving quilters in our shop and across the country.
Thread color is the thing customers most often want a second opinion on, and it is the thing a screen is worst at. Bring in the fabric, the block or a photograph, and a Quilt Fairy will hold spools against it in daylight and tell you which one vanishes. That is a five minute conversation that saves a reorder.
If you are choosing thread for the whole quilt rather than just the piecing, our piecing thread and quilt fabric collections are the natural next stops.
Frequently Asked Questions About Confetti Cotton Thread
What is Confetti Cotton thread?
Confetti Cotton is a 60 weight, two-ply, 100 percent Egyptian cotton thread made by Wonderfil for Riley Blake Designs, sold on 1,500 yard spools. The colors are custom dyed and named to coordinate with Riley Blake's Confetti Cotton solid fabric line, which runs to 40 shades.
Is Confetti Cotton the same as Wonderfil Efina?
Yes. Confetti Cotton is Wonderfil's Efina thread, dyed and branded for Riley Blake. Efina is Wonderfil's 60 weight two-ply cotton, so the construction, the fiber and the finish are identical. What is different is the color range, which was chosen to match Riley Blake fabric rather than Wonderfil's standard palette.
What is the difference between Confetti Cotton and Konfetti thread?
Weight and ply. Konfetti is Wonderfil's own 50 weight, three-ply cotton, a general purpose thread on 1,000 meter and 2,500 yard spools. Confetti Cotton is 60 weight, two-ply, on 1,500 yard spools, and it is the finer of the two.
Choose Konfetti when you want one thread that will do everything. Choose Confetti Cotton when seam bulk is the problem, meaning dense piecing, small blocks and appliqué.
What is 60 weight thread best for?
Piecing, appliqué, English paper piecing, and any quilting where you want the stitch to be felt rather than seen. Because it is fine, it produces flatter seams and less bulk where several seams cross, which matters most in blocks with many small pieces.
It is less suited to decorative quilting meant to stand off the surface of the quilt. For that, a 40 weight thread will show far better.
What needle should I use with 60 weight cotton thread?
A 70/10 or 80/12 needle. A microtex or topstitch point gives the cleanest result on quilting cotton, since the finer point pierces rather than pushes the threads of the fabric aside.
If you are getting skipped stitches or fraying, the needle is the first thing to change, and a fresh one solves the problem more often than any tension adjustment.
Can I use Confetti Cotton thread in the bobbin?
Yes, and matching your top and bobbin thread is the easiest way to get an even stitch. Using the same thread top and bottom means both sides behave the same way as tension shifts, which removes a variable rather than adding one.
Do the thread colors match Riley Blake Confetti Cotton fabric?
They were dyed to, and they share the same color names. That said, thread and cotton fabric take dye differently, and a spool always reads lighter than the finished seam does.
Where two shades are close, choose the darker one. Thread that is lighter than the fabric announces itself along a seam; thread that is slightly darker disappears into it. The fabrics themselves are in our Confetti Cotton solids collection.
Is 60 weight thread strong enough to piece a quilt?
Yes. Extra-long staple Egyptian cotton is considerably stronger than its thickness suggests, and a pieced seam is short, straight and supported by the quilting and the batting once the quilt is finished. At these sizes, thread weight is about bulk and appearance far more than strength.
Can I use Confetti Cotton thread on a longarm?
You can, for fine detail work, micro quilting and background fills where you want the stitching to recede. It is not the thread for edge to edge designs you want people to see, and most longarm quilters reach for a 40 weight for those.
If you are unsure what your machine will like, tell us what you are quilting on and we will point you at something appropriate.
How many yards are on a spool, and how far will it go?
Every color here is a 1,500 yard spool, which pieces several throw size quilts for most people, since piecing consumes far less thread than quilting does. If a quilt is going to be quilted densely, plan your thread by the quilting rather than the piecing. That is where the yardage actually goes.
