I've done a number of T-shirt quilts with a lot of different threads, cottons and mono poly. I've used the Pellon interfacing F911, which is a featherweight fusible 22" wide, also used the cotton woven fusible 45" wide. I've used size 16 or 18 needles and have had no problems. Sounds like it might be the type of stabilizer you are using. It could be the adhesive is a bit too sticky on the needle causing the thread to drag then hang up and break. The thread does not feed smoothly down the groove on the front of the needle.