An easy way to clean the bobbin area is with qtips. If you know someone that works in a dentist office,they use extra long tips to administir meds in people mouths and they work great in the inside of the bobbin and feed dog area. I clean mine after every quilt and if I'm using flannel more often. It's amazing what the qtips remove. They are fairly cheap, $7-9 for a box of 1000. I have a small vacuum attachment and have never used it, I find the qtips work just fine.