Frustration with tension

[mcarmickle]

I am pretty frustrated with my tension issues. Friday I finished a quilt and had absolutely NO issues. I used W & N batting, So Fine Thread and Bottom Line. Now I am working with another quilt...same Minkee backing, but using Hobbs 80/20, Signature Thread and Bottom Line. I made a quilt sandwich with the same "stuff" to be sure I had the tension correct and seemed fine. When I quilted the first pass, I came back to check it and found a big gap between one stretch of stitches and another (I have checked for burrs in anything that could have burrs, so I don't think that is the problem) and at the curves I am seeing very flat stitches and then it goes back to being perfect. Is there anyway to use different battings and thread or do I have to always use So Fine and W&N...are there any suggestions? I have the bobbin very loose and have loosened the top...perhaps threading the top differently? I would appreciate any suggestions! This happened with a customer quilt about 3 weeks ago when I was using Hobbs...I thought it was user error. Thanks for your help!!!! Marion In TX:o

[Mary Beth]

make sure your quilt sandwich is not too tight. I have had problems with skipped stitches because of this...you might check.

[ffq-lar]

Hi Marion!

---Take out and clean your bobbin case really well. A bit of lint under the finger of the case will cause tension problems and wonky stitches. It catches the thread and causes erratic stitch length.

Merry Christmas!

[LadyLake]

I use Hobbs 80/20 a lot; if I remember right, Warm & Natural is thicker and denser. Is your Minkie back loaded correctly, with the most stretch parallel to the roller bars? Is your quilt sandwich tension too tight, making it even thinner? Try loosening the sandwich and quilting slower.

[Quilting Heidi]

All good ideas already. Lint would be my first guess or threading.

[Stagecl]

Slightly longer stitch length might help. Think about sewing clothing...when the fabric is thicker (such as sweatshirt or jean material) or there are more layers, we make the stitches slightly longer.

[DawnCavanaugh]

Marion,

While the batting can certainly make a difference, I would also suspect the thread as a culprit.

I know that many quilters on the Forum get along great with Signature thread. Lately, however, I have received numerous calls through the tech support line about this particular thread causing looping, erratic stitch quality, and loose stitches.

If you examine a length of the thread, you'll find more inconsistencies and rough spots than many other threads available today. While the APQS pressure tension disks help accommodate those inconsistencies, they don't completely eliminate their effect. When those lumps and bumps travel through the disks, they create "looser" tension in a small section of thread, and that travels all the way to the needle.

Then, those lumps and bumps make it down to the needle's eye, where they pull and tug on the needle, causing it to move and flex even more than normal. In extreme cases, it can pull the needle away from the hook and cause skipped stitches.

If you were to use that thread on a domestic machine with a normal size 12 needle, the thread would probably snap if one of those lumps got down to the needle's eye, because it wouldn't fit through it.

However, with our giant MR 4.0 needles (like a size 18), they slip through the eye (but not without a fight!)

If you have the same difficulty with a different thread on the same quilt, then the batting may also be suspect.

Be sure that you have the rough side of the Hobbs facing down, too.

Hope this can help in some way!

[quiltmonkey]

Dawn, I always appreciate your insight to the different threads and the tensions and mechanics of how these go through the machine. Very interesting how all of this works. I appreciate your education very much! Thank you!

[mcarmickle]

Thanks so much for everyone's responses to my "frustration" question with the skipped stitches. I had a very helpful conversation with Dawn today...she is wonderful...and THEN I checked out the bobbin case. There was lint STUCK under the little area where there the thread slides in from the bobbin...I didn't notice it at first because it was so firmly entrenched but I couldn't figure out why the bobbin would sometimes be loose when I first checked it and then would be so tight it wouldn't move when I checked it again. NOW I KNOW!!! Anyway, I am going to do some practice things tomorrow...I will post my final analysis as I hope maybe it will help anybody else. YOU ALL ARE SOOOO SMART!!!!

[quiltmonkey]

Glad things are going better for you. FYI, I blow out my bobbin case (cupped in my hand) with the air compressor with every bobbin change. Really. And then I blow out the bobbin assembly (while machine is running slow) and blow the needle bar, too. I love that air compressor!!! The fluff that flies outa there is incredible!! My best most fave tool ever.

[Gator]

Marion, hope the lint removal did the trick. I was helping a new Lenni owner on Sunday, she had terrible tension with Signature thread. We know it was the tread because we replaced it with so fine and her Lenni sewed beautiful. We also tried King Tut and Lava and guess what? Her tension was beautiful. I know you can get a bad spool of any brand of thread but like Dawn, I'm getting calls about Signature and tension problems.

[Bekah]

Marion hope your tension troubles have disappeared. It is amazing what a little tiny speck of lint will do to tension. You might also try putting some Sewer's Aid on your thread. sometimes this will help too. I was having a dickens of a time with my tension and as soon as I gave my thread some lubrication, it stopped.