Millie and I aren't speaking

[kwilter]

I'm working on my last Christmas quilt. It's just a simple stipple. Superior Rainbows is in the top and Bottom Line prewound cardboard is in the bottom. I set the tension perfect. Now here's what's happening. Oh, and there is a new needle, the machine is cleaned, as well as the bobbin case (brand new) and I clean the bobbin case after every bobbin.

I'll put a new bobbin in and stipple across the top. The tension is fine. I go to do the next row and for some reason many of the top stitches get tight and flat in certain places (you can see bobbin pokies). This keeps happening EVERY BOBBIN.

Any ideas why this is happening?

[ramona-quilter]

Kwilter,

Been there, done that, bought the T-Shirt.

I agree with Norece. Sometimes a tiny phantom thread

gets stuck in the bobbin cage, too. (cage not case). I have

to get a flashlight and crawl under the machine to verify

that I don't have any ghosts hung up in the cage or

under the needle plate. It can be so frustrating.

I have also had the tiniest piece (glob, booger, etc) of lint

stuck in my bobbin case cause skipped, flat or loose stitches.

When I first started longarm quilting, I had problems with my

tension due to operator error. Duh, I had the top thread

riding outside the tension disks.

Now as soon as I have thread problems, I rethread from the

beginning, check the bobbin tension with my Towa gauge

and blow out the bobbin cage with canned air.

Good luck.

[SandraC]

I had a mystery problem this week, too...turned out to be a tiny piece of thread in between the tension disks...

[Guest Linda S]

I absolutely love Superior threads and use them almost exclusively. I DO NOT, however, use pre-wound bobbins. I have always found it worth my while to take a few minutes and wind my own. Just like the metal bobbins and my own assurance that the winding tension is even.

Linda

[quiltjunkie]

I'm with Linda on the pre wound, absolutely won't use them anymore because of intermittent tension problems such as your experiencing, I have the separate winder and use Bottom Line only, I never have to adjust my bobbins anymore. Once in awhile it will get a little hinky on me but it's usually becaue of one of the afore mentioned problems.