Book excerpt: A compendium of everything you need to know about that most essential of quilting notions thread! Sarah Ann Smith unravels the secrets behind how it's made, how to select the right thread for the right job, and how to use it to enhance your piecing, appliqu, and quilting. And not just thread! Learn about needles, machines, fabrics, stabilizers, marking tools, and more! Interspersed with the valuable nuts and bolts are small projects to put the information to work a needlekeeper and a thread tension sampler, to name just two. Sarah Ann's insights and tips will help you understand how and why certain tools and notions work best and when another option is a better choice.