Dream Seam Thread by YLI

A Three-Ply 50 Weight, Which Is Not How Piecing Thread Is Usually Made

Dream Seam is YLI's cotton piecing thread: 50 weight, three-ply, 100 percent Egyptian-grown extra-long staple cotton of Giza class, mercerized and gassed. It comes on 600 yard spools and 2000 yard cones.

The specification worth pausing on is the ply. Most 50 weight piecing thread is two-ply, including the best known one on the market. Dream Seam twists three finer strands to reach the same finished weight, which YLI describes as giving 50 percent more thread in the same thickness. Getting there requires a tighter twist, and the tighter twist is where the strength comes from.

What Three Plies Actually Change

Not the look of your seam. A 50 weight is a 50 weight, and a finished quilt top pieced in Dream Seam will not look different from one pieced in a two-ply of the same color.

What changes is behavior under stress. A tightly twisted three-ply resists abrasion better as it runs through the tension discs and the needle eye, which shows up in three specific places: long borders sewn under tension, foundation paper piecing where the thread is stitched through paper and then has the paper torn away from it, and any seam you unpick and sew again.

Paper piecing is the clearest case. Tearing foundation paper off a seam puts a kind of stress on thread that nothing else in quilting does, and it is exactly where a weaker thread gives up.

Flat Seams Are the Point of the Name

A piecing thread has one job that outranks all the others: disappear into the seam allowance without adding thickness.

Every seam in a quilt top gets pressed, and every intersection stacks several of them on top of each other. On a simple block nobody notices. On an eight point star, where the seams converge at a single point, thread bulk is the difference between a flat center and a lump you fight with the iron and then quilt over anyway.

A tight twist helps here too, because a tightly twisted thread compresses under the iron rather than fluffing. That is what the name is pointing at.

Giza Cotton, Mercerized and Gassed

Giza is a class of Egyptian extra-long staple cotton, and staple length is the single best predictor of how much lint a thread will leave in your machine. Longer fibers mean fewer loose ends working free as the thread runs.

Mercerizing is a caustic bath under tension that swells the fiber, and it does two useful things: it adds sheen and it makes the cotton take dye far more deeply. Gassing runs the thread through a flame to burn the surface fuzz away.

Together they are why a thread like this leaves noticeably less behind under the bobbin case than a short staple cotton will. It does not mean you can stop cleaning the machine. It means you will be cleaning less out of it.

Spools, Cones and Which Size to Buy

The 600 yard spool is the right size for trying a color, or for a thread you will use occasionally.

The 2000 yard cone is the better value if this is going to be your piecing thread, and piecing consumes far more thread than quilters expect. A single bed sized quilt top has hundreds of yards of seam in it once you count every block, every row and every border.

If you are unsure, buy the spool in the color you need now and the cone in whatever neutral you piece with constantly. Grey is the neutral most quilters underestimate, because it disappears against both light and dark fabric in a way that white and cream do not.

Shop Dream Seam 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.

We stock Dream Seam alongside the rest of our cotton thread and piecing thread, YLI's cotton hand quilting thread for work done away from the machine, and prewound bobbins so the bottom of the seam is sorted at the same time as the top.

If you are deciding between this and another 50 weight, tell a Quilt Fairy what you are piecing and on what machine. The differences between good piecing threads are small and situational, and the honest answer is sometimes that the one you already like is fine.

Frequently Asked Questions About Dream Seam Thread

What is Dream Seam thread?

Dream Seam is a 50 weight, three-ply, 100 percent Egyptian-grown extra-long staple cotton thread made by YLI, finished by mercerizing and gassing, and sold on 600 yard spools and 2000 yard cones. It is designed specifically for piecing, foundation paper piecing, sewing and quilting.

Is Dream Seam two-ply or three-ply, and does it matter?

Three-ply, and it matters at the edges rather than in ordinary use. Three finer strands twisted tightly reach the same 50 weight as a two-ply, and YLI's claim is 50 percent more thread in the same thickness.

The practical effect is more strength and better abrasion resistance without a thicker seam. On simple piecing you will not notice. On paper piecing, long seams and unpicking, you will.

How does Dream Seam compare to Aurifil 50 weight?

They are the same weight and both are excellent piecing threads, so the seams will look the same. The construction differs: Aurifil's 50 weight Mako is two-ply, Dream Seam is three-ply.

Choose Dream Seam if you want more strength at the same fineness, particularly for foundation paper piecing. Choose whichever you already have a full thread drawer of if the answer is otherwise a coin toss, because both do the job. Our Aurifil thread is here if you want to compare them side by side.

What is Giza cotton?

Giza is a classification of Egyptian extra-long staple cotton, named for the growing region. Extra-long staple means the individual fibers are longer than in standard cotton, so a thread spun from them has fewer loose fiber ends.

In use that translates to less lint, a smoother thread through the needle, and a stronger result at any given weight.

Is Dream Seam good for foundation paper piecing?

It is one of the better choices for it. Paper piecing subjects thread to a stress nothing else in quilting does, because the paper gets torn away from a stitched seam, and a tightly twisted three-ply holds up to that better than a looser thread.

A shorter stitch length also helps, since it perforates the paper more finely and makes it tear away cleanly.

Can I use Dream Seam in the bobbin?

Yes, and matching the top and bobbin is the simplest way to keep tension predictable. Both threads then behave the same way as the machine works, which removes a variable instead of adding one.

Will Dream Seam work on a longarm?

For piecing and for quilting where you want the stitch to recede, yes. Cotton at 50 weight is finer than most quilters choose for edge to edge designs, so the quilting will read softly rather than standing off the surface.

If you want the quilting itself to be the design, a 40 weight from our quilting thread and bobbins will show far better. Tell us what machine you are running and we will point you at something suited to it.

How much thread will a quilt take?

More than people expect. Piecing a bed sized quilt runs to several hundred yards once every block, row and border seam is counted, and quilting it can take several times that again depending on how densely it is stitched.

A 600 yard spool is a reasonable size for a throw or for a color you need in small amounts. If this is going to be the thread you piece with, the 2000 yard cone is the more sensible buy.

Can Quilted Joy help me choose a piecing thread?

Yes. Tell a Quilt Fairy what you are making, what you are piecing it on, and what you have used before, and we will tell you whether switching is worth it or whether the thread you already own is perfectly good for this quilt.