OK, I know you're tired of hearing my requests, but I am ready to throw this machine through a window!
We have quilted 1 quilt on our GrandQuilter. We had lots of issues, and even took the machine to the shop. We got all our issues worked out and finished quilting the first quilt. It looks great (if you don't look too close) and I'm sure the 5-year-old it's going to will never notice the problems with it.
We took that one off the frame and put the next one on. We were so excited because we learned a lot on the first quilt and just knew the second one would go much better. We got one row almost quilted and had a thread break about 8" from the end of the row. I re-threaded and finished the row, then moved to the next row. About a foot into the row the thread broke. I "unsewed," rethreaded, and started sewing again, but got another break. I pulled thread and bobbin, cleaned the bobbin area, wound a new bobbin, rethreaded everything, and started sewing again. At the beginning it skipped about 3 stitches, then quilted fine for 3 or 4 inches, then broke the thread again.
I'm embarrassed to call the shop again, but I may have to do it. One thing we discovered is that we thought we had bought 100% cotton thread for practice and then for the first quilt. When I looked closely I discovered that they are both 100% polyester. That means I completely quilted Eli's quilt with 100% polyester thread. Oh well, too late to do anything about it now.
The current quilt is being quilted with Connecting Threads thread that is 100% cotton. I bought several spools based on recommendations from this board. That could be my problem. If it is, I am fine with switching back to polyester if that's what it takes. I'd really rather stick with cotton but at this point I HAVE to get some quilts done. Will I be ok with polyester thread? I have read that it will eventually damage the cotton - is that true?
Can anyone think of anything else that could be my problem? I have adjusted tension, but if I loosen it, I get loops on the bottom, and if I tighten it, I get a break immediately.
Thanks in advance,
Darren