Embroidery Thread 101: Types, Quality, and How We Match Your Brand Colours

Not all embroidery thread is created equal. If you've ever received embroidery that looked dull, faded quickly, or felt rough to the touch, thread quality is likely a big part of the story. At RK Threads, we only run high-quality embroidery thread through our machines — and here's why that choice matters a lot more than most people realise.

What Is Embroidery Thread Made Of?

Most commercial embroidery thread is made from polyester or rayon (viscose). Both have their place, but they behave differently and suit different applications.

Polyester Thread

Polyester is the workhorse of commercial embroidery. It's strong, colourfast, and highly resistant to washing, bleaching, and UV exposure. For workwear and uniforms that are going to be washed frequently and worn hard, polyester thread is the right call. It holds its colour wash after wash and doesn't break down under commercial laundering conditions.

It's also slightly more resistant to thread breakage during high-speed machine stitching, which means cleaner production runs and less chance of gaps in your finished design.

Rayon (Viscose) Thread

Rayon has a beautiful natural sheen that polyester can't quite match. It has a silky, lustrous finish that photographs beautifully and catches the light in a way that makes embroidery look especially premium. It's often used for fashion embroidery, gifting, and decorative pieces where the visual impact is the priority.

The trade-off is that rayon is slightly less durable than polyester under heavy washing conditions and can be more sensitive to bleach. For most branded workwear and uniforms, polyester is the more practical choice.

Thread Weight: Why 40-Weight Is the Standard

Embroidery thread is measured in weight — and yes, confusingly, a higher number means a finer thread. The standard for machine embroidery is 40-weight thread, which gives you the right balance of coverage, detail and strength for most designs.

• 40-weight — the everyday standard. Works beautifully for logos, text, fills, and general commercial embroidery.
• 60-weight — a finer thread used for very small text and fine detail work where 40-weight would be too thick to read cleanly.
• 12-weight — a much heavier thread sometimes used for bold, chunky embroidery effects. Less common in commercial work.

We run 40-weight thread as our standard, and switch to finer weights where a design demands it.

Colour Matching: How We Get Your Brand Colours Right

Thread colour matching is one of those things clients rightly care a lot about. Your brand colours are your brand colours — getting them wrong on a uniform is not a good look.

We match thread colours using the Isacord thread colour systems, which are the industry-standard thread colour references used by professional embroiderers worldwide. These systems have thousands of colours available and allow us to find the closest possible match to your brand's Pantone, CMYK, or RGB colour references.

A few things worth knowing about thread colour matching:

• Thread is not paint — an exact Pantone match isn't always physically possible, but a close professional match almost always is.
• Thread colour can look slightly different on different coloured fabrics. A navy thread on a white shirt reads differently to the same thread on a black shirt.
• We include thread colour details in your proof so you can see exactly what we're using before production starts.

If you're not sure about thread colours, just tell us your Pantone codes or share your brand guidelines and we'll take it from there.

Specialty Threads: When You Want Something a Bit Extra

Standard thread is great for most jobs, but occasionally clients want something with a bit more personality. We can work with a range of specialty thread options including:

• Metallic thread — gives a glittery, shiny finish. Great for logos that have a premium or luxury feel. Worth noting that metallic thread requires slower stitching speeds and more careful tension management, so it adds time and cost to a job.
• Glow in the dark thread — exactly what it sounds like. A novelty option but a fun one for the right brand or application.
• Colour-change (variegated) thread — thread that shifts through multiple colours as it stitches, creating a gradient effect. Interesting for certain decorative applications.

If you're after something out of the ordinary, have a chat with us and we'll let you know what's possible.

Why We Don't Cut Corners on Thread

Cheap thread breaks more often during stitching (meaning gaps in your design), fades faster with washing, and can look dull and flat even on a fresh garment. Running quality thread through quality machines, with proper tension settings, is what gives you that crisp, vibrant, long-lasting finish that makes embroidery worth it in the first place.

We're not interested in making embroidery that looks ordinary. Every order that leaves RK Threads should look like something you're proud to put your brand on.

Get a Quote Today

Ready to see what quality embroidery looks like on your garments? Head to wholesale.rkthreads.com and get a quote started. We'll look after the thread, the tension, the digitising, and everything in between.