I have this problem with my sewing machine. It is a Brother XL-5130, so it has no bells and whistles. It will sew with a regular foot just fine, but as soon as I put on the darning foot in order to quilt, the bobbin thread will not catch, or may catch every 5-6 stitches, so I get these long sections of just loose top thread. Any thoughts as to what needs to be done to fix this? I have re-threaded both the top & bobbin threads and re-attached the darning foot several times to no avail. Thanks for your help!

I don't have a brother machine but my old Pfaff had a slightly higher setting for the presser foot when using the darning foot. If I placed the foot in the "normal" position it would do the same thing. See if there is a notch for the presser foot that is slightly above the normal.

Not familiar with Brothers, but is this the kind of foot you are supposed to lower the feed dogs with?

I had an older Brother machine that had a plastic darning plate to cover the feed dogs--did your machine come w/one? The newer ones have a botton on the back of the machine to lower the feed dogs.

HTH