Originally Posted by
Scraplady
Don't see how this would work since the needle thread has to physically wrap all the way around the bobbin in order to form a stitch. But it's an interesting idea. Surely someone out there has that of this... The less time we spend changing bobbins, or saying naughty words b/c we ran out of bobbin threead 6 feet back, the better!
Yep, scraplady is right. The top thread comes down. The bobbin hook grabs it and wraps it around the entire bobbin in order to interlock the top and bottom threads. No way to do this with the spool outside the bobbin case. And you WILL break your machine (or at least your needle) if you try to stuff a spool in where the bobbin case goes. Note that the bobbin case is also responsible for tension - so without it you'd have a rats nest of thread after the first 2 stitches (if you got that far).