Mercerized Thread

[Gerkin]

Gentlemen,

In my recent quests for cheap thread avaliable locally, I seem to have had no luck. The only 100% cotton that anyone has is mercerized. Now I know that this is some chemical process that makes the fibers stay in or something of that sort. And I know that it was around during our time period, but how prevelant was it? I know it was still pretty new, but how much was it in use? Any help is greatly apprieciated.

[SCTiger]

Re: Mercerized Thread

I once found some Army surplus medical thread that was %100 cotton thread undyed and unmercerized.
Previous recommendations for accurate threads on the old data
base have been "linen thread" and silk thread for buttonholes. Contact Family Heirloom Weavers, Ben Tart , Chris Daley or any of the vendors that sell uniform kits. They would definetly give you good information on a correct source.

[Bill Cross]

Re: Mercerized Thread

I know that this is some chemical process that makes the fibers stay in or something of that sort. And I know that it was around during our time period, but how prevelant was it? I know it was still pretty new, but how much was it in use? Any help is greatly apprieciated.

You are correct: in the mercerization process, cotton thread (three ply, as opposed to two-ply linen thread) is passed under tension through a caustic alkaloid bath. The chemicals expand the threads, making them more accepting of dyes (important in an era before the widespread use of color-fast alkaline dyes), and also smoothed out the threads that otherwise made cotton weaker and as difficult to sew with as linen thread.

As to how widespread the process was during the 1860s, it's difficult to know. Much of the cotton produced in this country was sent to England, so linen continued to remain popular with home seamstresses because it was relatively cheap to make. Mercerization was invented by John Mercer in 1844, but he sold his patent to a French company (DMC who is still in business and sells under the "Dritz" name here) in 1850. Sewing thread eventually replaced fabric for them, by the way.

Mills in the northeast began to compete with English mills by installing humidifiers that replicated the moist, clammy climate of the English midlands, and made spinning and weaving cotton more viable. Presumably they were producing cotton thread, though again, we don't know if they were using the mercerization process or not or how widely. We DO know that cotton thread had pretty much replaced linen thread by the 1860s in commercial usages, though non-mercerized thread could have been in use.

If you're doing machine sewing, then glazed, glace or glaced thread for quilting will work fine. If hand sewing, then you can never be incorrect to use linen in most cases. Linen threads available today are not suitable, by the way, for machine sewing.