sewtruterry

Sorry in advance regarding the length of this post but this is something that I deal with on a daily basis with a lot of people.

The most important issue when selecting needles is to know what brand your machine uses. Your dealer should be able to help you on that one. If you do not have the right brand of needle for your machine you will have problems some may be small others may be big. The next issue is making sure when starting any FMQ is to insert a fresh needle. Then if you start out with the lowest number possible for your project and you are experiencing thread breakage check your thread path first to make sure nothing is getting caught where it shouldn't. Then change the needle and if that doesn't help go to a larger eye needle. If you are still getting thread breakage the thread could be the culprit. It may be too old, it could have been stored wrong, or it may be the wrong kind of thread for the batting or the fabric. I have seen a lot of quilters try to use all cotton thread with polyester batting. The batting acts like sand paper and shreds the thread. At that point either put up with the problem by constantly rethreading or change to another type of thread of the same color. Also when FMQ and you are changing directions like a corner or a circle the more drastic the change in direction the slower your hands need to go. in fact hovering for a split second on the corner will give you a nicer corner. Hope this helps.