So I am quilting my runners in my attempt to get acquainted with my 66-16. A funny thing keeps happening though. I've taken some pics so you can see too. To start with, when I try to bring the bobbin thread up to the top of the quilt, at least half the time the top thread pops up with no bobbin thread at all. No real rhyme or reason to it. I've had to just keep turning the wheel until a stitch finally took.
Also, it seems like the thread keeps unraveling on itself. It starts in the take up lever and goes all the way down to the hole in the needle. Most of the time, once the thread is "thicker", you'll see in the picture, the thread breaks. Other times, it gets quilted right into the quilt and then it looks like it's skipping stitches. It's just weird. Has anyone seen this before? It's happening so often, I'm worried either something isn't right with the machine or I'm doing something wrong. I had a needle break last weekend, so I replaced it with a size 14. I've been having problems ever since. Is this one of those machines that take some kind of funky needle?
Chunky thread next to the needle hole 1
Chunky thread next to the needle hole 2
Skipped stitches and the thick thread mess it left behind:
This is what it looks like after the thread breaks and I get it all out of the machine.
