QuiltedCritterLady

Hi, I was wondering if anyone else has had issues with plastic bobbins breaking. I got a Janome 8900 QCP and have had a handful of issues with it. One of those issues is that in just two month's time, (and very little use) I have had two plastic (Janome) bobbins break. The first one broke cleanly; the end just pop off. The last time it happened, the bobbin looked almost like it shattered. That was one of the new (and supposedly improved) blue Janome bobbins. This is very frustrating, because thread is not cheap and so far, I've not found a way to salvage the thread when it happens. My dealer has specifically said that I must use Janome bobbins, but this is ridiculous. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Additional info: I've been trying to improve my free-motion quilting so I was practicing with that. I also was using the larger (blue-dot) bobbin case – which I finally removed and replaced with the regular one. The bigger bobbin case seemed to cause more problems and did not improve stitch quality in any way.