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King Tut on Millie in dry climate


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I just finished a quilt that I fought all the way through. King Tut on top, So Fine in bobbin. Everyonce in a while the needle thread would either break or, oddly, break and skip about five stitches on top and then stitch again just fine. Sometimes I didn't notice it and so finding those breaks and fixing them neatly was a real pain. I tried changing the thread path on both three hole guides, and going to a 4.5 needle from a 4.0 after reading various threads here.

I'm either needing a comprehensive guide to King Tut or I'm going to give up on King Tut in the needle. I can sew with Rainbows just fine but the thicker cotton gives me fits. Thanks in advance, and I am blessed by these forums often.

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I gave up on King Tut years ago and sold it all to a friend with a Gammill. The "phantom stitching" happens when the thread breaks below the needleplate and the rotation of the hook picks up the broken thread and continues stitching. I would slather on sewer's Aid, put the cone upside down, thread the three-hole guide so it didn't twist the thread---everything I could think of and still had breakage and random loops of top thread on the back. One thing you might check with thicker thread on top---move the hook retaining finger out as far as possible while still stopping the rotation of the bobbin assembly. That will give the thread a scooch more room to make the stitch.

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Thank you Zeke and ffq-lar for your comforting replies!  I thought something was wrong with me.  It is too bad because I like the thick cotton look of King Tut when I don't want a shiny top thread, and I love variegated most of the time. ffq-lar, I need to get educated to understand your guidance on moving the hook finger.  Is that info in my manual?  Thanks so much.  I didn't select the reply notification so it took me a few days to check back.

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Redhot:  The "finger" is the bobbin basket retaining bracket.  It's located directly below the needle plate.  It's held in place by a Phillips  head screw.  The bracket ("finger") has a slot in it so it can be moved toward the hook or away from the hook by loosening the screw and sliding it in it's race.  After your re-position it, just tighten it down again.   Jim

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Well folks, I'm having trouble again. I think I've solved it but don't really understand why it is so hard to work with cotton threads. Maybe I've just been lucky. I am quilting more lately. I'm working on a series of memory quilts for a family. Using YLI in the needle and king Tut in the bobbin  now.  I checked at the start and everything looks good. But about  third of 2 way through the quilt I noticed some looseness in some top stitches, and took  better look. Periodically I was getting ladders underneath. Not all the time. And it got worse the farther into the quilt I was. I'm just doing  meander so this didn't take long.  I changed the needle. Still trouble. Ripped out what I had to; changed the bobbin thread to fine smooth polyester. Changed the path to help the thicker thread have less drag. (Reading lots of threads here looking for clues). Put some scraps on the machine and tested lots of loops and swirls. No problems so I'm back quilting on the job again. I'm beginning to hate cotton. Was part of the problem using two cotton threads? 

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Redhot:  King Tut probably works a bit better on machines with rotary tension systems like Linda's friend with the Gammill, than on disk tension systems like APQS, but it's still a challenge.  I've never used it, because early on I decided that lint was a longarmer's enemy, and cotton thread produces a lot of lint.  As you can see from the comments here, a lot of us find that the challenges of using KT out weighs any benefit.  It's also pretty expensive.  My advise, give up on it, or resign yourself to a lot of fiddling in order to use it.  Jim

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