I'm going to try to answer all of these.
What is a bobbin washer? My bobbins are plastic if that makes a difference.
The needle was replaced just before the last bobbin fill. I just got a tangle so I completely rethreaded the entire machine as per suggested. It has also just sat for 40 minutes because of this combined with putting my three year old down for her nap. We'll see if sitting has helped shortly. While rethreading I also made sure to brush away any fuzz that I could see.
The only thread that I use is Guttermann (sp??)100% cotton.
As for the longarmer, the quilt that I am currently doing by hand applique is going to be going to one if I can find one. My thinking up to now was that I wanted to do the whole quilt by myself but I am getting UFOs stacking up since I am not really enjoying the quilting portion while loving the rest of the process. But I was also told that longarmers won't take trimmed quilts and the UFOs I have are trimmed down to the correct finished size.
The next time I get a "good" nest I will take a picture and post it. It shows up really well since my top thread is white and the bottom thread is dark blue for the dark blue minke on the back.
Tara