Skhf

I have a Viking Opal which hates Coats and Clark thread for any type of quilting. It works fine for piecing though. My Viking rep said to use Guttermans and it works well. Others may work as well but my Viking dealer is located in the JAF store and they sell few thread brands.

Austinite

You just need practice. I'm still learning too, I've been using baby blankets for practice. Busy fun prints hide my mistakes better lol. I leave my feed dogs up and covered stitch length at 0 and I use C&C and Wonderfil with no issues. I've found I have better tension leaving the feed dogs up, I use 80/12 universal needles, I get them bulk on Amazon.

carslo

Try a larger needle 18/10 is all that I use for FMQ and gloves!

cashs_mom

I don't know about your Topaz but on my Bernina, I sometimes have to drop the thread tension way down to keep threads from breaking or fraying. How did you determine that your tension was fine? Tension that is fine for straight sewing might not be fine for FMQ.

MarionsQuilts

I figured my tension was fine since I wasn't having any of those loops in the back of my quilt, or skipping any stitches ... could I be wrong? (Like it would be the first time hahahaha!)

cashs_mom

With my machine, breaking thread usually means the top tension is too tight or occasionally, I'm moving the fabric too fast.

Lady Diana

TRY a 90/14 topstitch needle. Ballpoints should not be used on quilt sandwich....especially cotton. thread breaking can be the wrong size needle, thread path hang up somewhere or a bad needle. Even though it is new, doesn't mean it is OK. Sometimes there are bad needles in a pack. Are your loops the eyelash kind? If so, it means you need to slow down your hand movement around curves, or speed up your machine.

glassbird

I was going to make a suggestion for something that has helped me quite a bit recently, but since I am a fairly new sewist I opted to wait a bit and see if someone with more experience might make the suggestion first. But I am not seeing anyone, so far, mention "Sewer's Aid". If this is not an appropriate product, or suggestion, someone please jump in and say something!

I don't use it for FMQ as I seem to have relatively good success with that, but I do use it for 12 weight thread. I use a large eye needle (100), simple stitches, sew slowly, set tension to 1 or less, and STILL have breakage...but Sewer's Aid has made a huge difference. I coiled up a pipe cleaner on the top of my machine, attached to the handle, and arranged it so that the thread rubs across the pipe cleaner just before it enters the machine. Then I added a drop of Sewer's Aid to the pipe cleaner where the thread touches it...basically a constant thin coat is added as I sew. I do have to add another drop every 10 minutes or so, but it helps tremendously.