This week it has been one thing after another (several non-quilting things but a few quilting things as well). The newest issue is the BSR is not doing right on my brand new 440 QE. It's skipping stitches really badly and I have done everything to try and figure out why. It'll stitch a dozen or more perfect stitches, then it'll skip four or five. Looks horrible. I did a total cleaning of my machine, rethreaded the upper and bobbin threads, put a new needle on (I only have the Universal ones that came with the machine, tomorrow I'm picking up some topstitching ones hoping that might help) and nothing seems to be helping. Here's the kicker, I can sew on a small sandwich of the EXACT same material and not have any issues but put the quilt back on the machine and it goes to skipping right away. I am being really careful to make sure the quilt isn't pulling or dragging on the machine at all and keeping it supported on table and off.
I called my store this morning that I bought the machine from (I really like those ladies at that store) and she told me to try threading the bobbin thread through the little arm that sticks up from the bobbin case (she called it a pigtail). I did that and the stitch regulator started working perfectly. It did great for about half an hour then out of nowhere started skipping again. I took the quilt off my machine, opened everything up fiddle with it for a minute and then put the quilt back on. Skip, skip, skip. I turned my machine off and walked away. I'm past the point of crying from frustration.
The lady I talked to this morning did say if the rethreading of the bobbin didn't work to bring my stitch regulator in tomorrow and they would plug it in and make sure it had some update or something on it. She mentioned she had a machine that was skipping and that's what fixed it. That all sounds great and I really hope and pray that that fixes my issue but why would my machine just be skipping on my quilt and not my little sandwiches? Seems like it must be operator error but I can't for the life of me figure out what I'm doing wrong. I'm FMQ'ing the exact way I did on my little cheap Brother and it never skipped a stitch.
Anyone had this problem? I'm so bummed about this. I'm worried there won't be anything found wrong with my machine so it will be assumed I'm causing the problem. :(