Embroidery thread brands compared: Isacord, Madeira, Sulky, Robison-Anton, Floriani, Hemingworth and more

Thread brands differ less in how they sew than people expect and more in colour range, availability and price. This is what each is known for, so that stocking one brand and sewing designs made for another, which is what everybody does, is a matter of conversion rather than compromise.

Polyester and rayon

The two fibres used for nearly all 40-weight embroidery thread.

Polyester is stronger, colourfast, bleach-resistant and cheaper. It is what commercial shops run: sportswear, uniforms, caps, anything washed hard. Modern polyester (trilobal) has a sheen close to rayon.

Rayon has the deeper, softer sheen and a slightly softer hand. It is weaker, fades with sunlight and bleach, and costs more. Heirloom pieces, dry-cleaned garments and home décor still favour it. It also breaks more readily on high-speed machines, which is the other reason shops moved away from it.

Both come in the same weights: 40 is standard (charts, digitising defaults and this site's density numbers all assume it); 60 is for small text and fine detail (use tighter satin spacing, about 0.3 mm); 30 is heavier and more covering, used for a bold look with wider spacing (0.45 to 0.5 mm); 12 is for hand-look and decorative work.

The brands

Isacord (Amann, Germany). 40-weight trilobal polyester, 380 or so colours in the current card. The default in North American commercial shops and in most design colour sheets. Sold on 1,000 m and 5,000 m cones. Colour numbers are four digits (0020 black, 0015 white, 3620 marine blue).

Madeira Polyneon (Germany). 40-weight polyester, over 400 colours, the European commercial default and widely stocked worldwide. Four-digit numbers starting with 1 (1800 black). Madeira Rayon (Classic) is the matching rayon line with its own numbers; the two are separate charts.

Sulky (US, made by Gunold). Best known for rayon in the home market, 400 or so colours on 250 m and 850 m spools, with a polyester line (Sulky Poly Deco) alongside. Numbers are four digits starting with 1 or 2 (1005 black).

Robison-Anton (US). Super Strength Rayon and Super Brite Polyester, over 400 colours in each, historically the commercial standard in the US before Isacord's rise; still common in older colour sheets. Four-digit numbers (5596 black in polyester).

Floriani (RNK, US). 40-weight polyester marketed to home embroiderers through dealers, 360 or so colours, known for consistent tension across colours. Numbers are PF followed by four digits.

Hemingworth (US). Polyester on a spool with a built-in snap cap that stops the thread unwinding, popular for home use. 300 or so colours, four-digit numbers.

Marathon (Marathon Threads, sold widely online). Polyester and rayon, competitively priced, four-digit numbers.

Gütermann (Germany). Known for sewing thread; the Creativ Dekor and Sulky-made lines cover embroidery. Numbers overlap with the sewing-thread ranges, which confuses charts.

Coats Sylko (UK). Trilobal polyester used in some European shops.

Brother and Janome are not thread makers so much as palettes: Brother's 64-colour embroidery thread line is what PES files map to, and Janome's 79-colour chart is what JEF files store. Both sell thread in those colours. Designs digitised in another brand and saved as PES show the nearest Brother colour on the machine screen, which is a conversion of a conversion; the Brother to Isacord table is for reading those screens.

Colour range and where they overlap

Every major brand has the 300 or so colours that cover most work; the 400-plus charts add near-duplicates in popular ranges (blues, reds, skin tones). Between Isacord, Madeira Polyneon and Robison-Anton, more than 80 % of colours have a match under ΔE 5 in each of the others; the misses are in pastels and greys. The conversion tables list every colour with its nearest match and how close it is.

Choosing what to stock

Shops stock one polyester brand for everything, one rayon brand if their customers ask for it, and a small set of specialty spools (metallics, glow, variegated). The brand that matters is the one your supplier can deliver tomorrow. The rest is conversion: keep the converter open when a design arrives with a colour sheet in another brand, and build a house list of the conversions you have settled with cones in hand.

Reading a colour card

Printed cards fade and screens lie. When a colour matters (a customer's brand blue, a skin tone), pull the two nearest cones the converter suggests and hold them against the artwork in daylight. The chart ranks candidates; the cone decides.