Re bobbins and tension at my house

[Jeanette]

I guess it's different strokes for different folks. I use the prewounds with cardboard and run with the inside one on or sometimes both of them pulled off, no problem. I put the holes on the outside when I wind and then on the inside when in the bobbin case, as long as the thread goes clockwise it doesn't matter. And last of all I haven't ran a backlash spring in my bobbins in a long long time. The last one fell out and I said to heck with it, adjusted a little bit and kept going. I use a separate bobbin case for the very thin threads like SewFine or Bottom Line and a separate one marked for Rayons and one for Metallics.

Then I have two just for my plain old quilting thread. I bought a box of 100 bobbins on Ebay and it came with five cases so I make use of them. I do throw out bobbins that are out of round and that happens, especially winding monofilament thread and overfilling the bobbins. I have tossed one bobbin case and seemed to have solved a problem last year. Couldn't adjust it to hold or something. My Nolting doesn't seem to be tempermental or I am just used to her maybe. I don't use a delicate touch when adjusting the top tension, I just crank her up or down aggressively and then do fine tuning. You can't be afraid of that tension knob! These are not delicate instruments, they are industrial machines made for long hard hours of work.

Oh and I also buy my needles & bobbins on Ebay, if they say for Consew (the commercial machines) they are just fine for Alice. I can get any size or style I need using the commercial sources so take a look.