I gave my machine a thorough cleaning and oiling. It worked better than ever when I tested it. The zigzag stitch was beautiful (I haven't been able to use it up to this point) and the straight stitch looked good too. I finally worked up the courage to try again to try fmq this morning. I worked alright on the sample practice square so I tried my quilt. I didn't get very far before my needle broke again. I re-threaded, got a new needle and tried again on my practice square and the bottom thread was extremely loose and terrible looking. I re-threaded again, and it looked slightly better but not great. One thing I did notice when I was cleaning it was on the needle plate it appears to be very scratched around the needle hole (from needles breaking?) I am very disappointed
I have heard people with this same machine talk about how great they are and how they were able to quilt with not a single problem. I checked for stray threads when I was cleaning it and couldn't find any. I does appear to work better with a fresh bobbin. It seems to get worse as the bobbin gets about half full.