LeeAnn

I'm posting this to hopefully help some of you with the same problem. It took me about a year and tons of frustration to finally figure this one out. My Bernina 440QE had always been a dream machine when one day while using the stitch regulator it began to skip stitches. I tried everything I could think of and nothing worked. I stitched on a small practice swatch and it was perfect but everytime I switched to my quilt it would skip stitches like crazy. I took it to my dealer who claimed there was nothing wrong with it. I begged to differ and finally gave up on the quilting. About 6 months later I pulled out the quilt top I was working on and finished it....skipped stitches and all. I was hand stitching the binding down when I noticed I could hardly get my needle through. Low and behold I discovered the problem. It was the basting spray I used. It was gumming up on my needle even though I couldn't see it. I had purchased the less expensive brand at wal-mart some time back. Of course on the can it says it won't gum up needles, trust me....it does. I went to Joann's and purchased the Dritz spray adhesive and tried it. Wow! So much better....doesn't skip at all. I definitely learned a valuable lesson the hard way. Cheaper is not always better. It also explained why I could practice on a small swatch with no skipped stitches...I didn't use the spray on the practice piece. I was crazed from the skipped stitches so if I can keep one of you sane then my work here is done. Happy stitching!