JoJo your quilt looks just great and I hope you can work out the problems

JoJo, The quilt looks good. If you can do that well with all the problems the machine was giving you, when you get that sorted out you are going to love FMQ and you'll be very good at it.

Jo Jo, your quilt looks really good. I think you will come to love FMQ once the machine is behaving. There is so much experience to draw from in this forum. That's what I thought the first time I stumbled in and that's what I still think. Thanks all for participating

Some of the symptoms that you have described remind me of a problem that I had with my Bernina 153. The problem was the needle and hook alignment. Please have your machine serviced as soon as your technician is available. There is no point in continuing to frustrate yourself.

Have that relaxing beverage and enjoy hand quilting in the interim.

Toodles,

Diane

Beautiful swirls Jo Jo

JoJo, I don't know your machine, but it sounds like there really may be something out of timing or some piece of thread caught in some odd place to me. I think I'd take it in to see. Hope you get it back in order soon. That can be really frustrating.

JoJo. . .when you wrote that the thread jumped out of the top tension discs, I wondered if you had a cross wound spool on your spool holder. Those will affect your tension. It is better to use a spool holder so that the thread comes off the top of the cone. I hope you are taking your machine to see Nick in Newberg. So sorry that you had that much trouble quilting your project; but, your quilt looks awesome!

JoJo, I've been following you thread but felt a little helpless because I don't know enough to give any advice on this particular topic. You really did good on the quilting you posted (I wish I could get those kind of results...) but I can understand your frustration. It would be really nice if it's your machine that needs a small adjustment, then everything else should fall into place. Keeping my fingers crossed for you...

Thanks Nancy. You are too kind. Trying to stitch right on top of a previously stitched line is insanely hard for me. Everytime I thought I was right on top, I wasn't! It looked like I was drunk but I wasn't but maybe I should have been. <giggle>

JoJo - Your quilting looks beautiful! You would never think when looking at it that you had any problems. Very frustrating, but the result is worth the frustration, IMHO.

Nancy

Thanks everyone for all your support and advice. I really need all the help I can get.

I spoke with the machine technician on the phone today and he thinks the clearance for the needle/hook may need an adjustment. He's swamped right now so I'll have to wait until next week before he can work on it. I did manage to machine quilt a small 7 inch by 7 inch quilt sample with pretty good success. I switched back to Aurifil thread on top and bottom, kept the topstitch needle in, lowered the top tension to 3 and lowered the free motion foot to where it nearly is touching the top of the quilt. I also tried bringing the thread to the top way away from where I wanted to start and then moving to where I wanted to begin. That seemed to take care of the mess of threads underneath at the start of the quilting.

I'm very stubborn by nature thanks to my mother so I won't give up. I just needed to get away from it but I also wanted to finish the small piece for my husband's recliner. It was my fault my frustration got so great because I wouldn't stop and walk away. Today, I'm better.

Here's a few photos of my project. I could have made three in the time it took me to quilt it.





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JoJo, Have you had success with FMQ in the past with the machine you are using now? If so, then I'd say it's time to think that the problem is the machine or the thread. I believe from your description that this problem happens with a number of different kinds of threads, so I am thinking machine. You sew alot and thread constantly moving over metal parts create heat from friction. I remember taking my first machine, a Singer Slant-O-Matic, in for service when I was still in college. I was a Home Ec. Major - I sewed everything I owned. The machine might have been 4 years old. The repairman was amazed because the steel pin that holds the tension discs had a groove worn in it from thread passing over it. He had never seen anything like it. I am sure you sew quite alot and there could be more wear and tear on the machine than you might thing. Incidently, that part was replaced. It one of those really great machines made by Singer and its still going great guns, but the part needed to be replaced. My parents bought it for me for my 16th birthday and I will be 67 this year. Don't give up on FMQ or hand quilting either for that matter. When you get the machine and thread working well together it will be a pleasure. Stick with it, figure it out, and please, let us all learn from it. Take a break. Then figure it out.

Hi JoJo - You might also experiment to see if your problems occur however you move the quilt, or only if you move the quilt in certain directions. I've found, for example, that some of the Superior threads (most notably different SoFine weights and the PolyQuilter) tend to have problems in my machine. The SoFine threads (both #50 and #30) tend to shred if I quilt left to right or right to left but do fine in the back and forth directions. I'm using the PolyQuilter right now and am having a h*** of a time getting it to keep a constant tension in the stitch, no matter what I do and the problems are worse left-to-right than top-to-bottom. But other threads, like Superior Rainbows and FilTec Glide haven't had these problems in my machine (often on the same quilt as the problem threads). Since sewing machines are designed to sew back and forth, when FMQ we are moving the quilt in directions that the machine really isn't designed for so you might need a stronger thread. Anyway, if the problems only happen when moving in certain directions, that might help you evaluate what the problem is and get you one step closer to fixing it.

Nancy

Jo Jo what I meant about moving the fabric was that when I start I take both threads to the top and do a few stitches to fasten it. If I keep in the same place I get a knot underneath, if I move it a couple of threads back and forth it doesn't happen.

I usually find if the thread is jumping in the top threading area its because the thread is catching on the notch in the spool or not unwinding evenly from the thread holder so adjusting that helps. If its catching on the spool I turn it over. Hope this helps, I've had every problem known to man (and woman) mostly because I'm self taught so learn the hard way