It doesn't take that much. I was having the same problem last night and then the light came on. I had cut the thread away from the spool but hadn't ran it to get it unloaded from the machine. The loopers still had thread in them and wouldn't accept any more. I set it back to threading, ran it until all the thread went thru and it was fine. I do know of people who use tweezers to put the thread in. For the wooly nylon or dec threads mine came with a wire that has a loop on the end, I put the thread thru the loop and then insert it into the hole for the loopers until it comes out the other end.