I was making some refrigerator handles a few weeks ago and was having constant thread breakage. I thought it was my needle, so I changed from the 75/11 to the 80/12 - still constant breakage. Finally changed my thread and had no further breakage. Because I had a lot of thread from previously doing some bowling shirts for a league, my thread was old. So to double check, I took a strand and pulled it - and it broke (took a little strength, but it DID break). So I realized my thread was too old. This is why, I guess, we should not get overly excited when we start out with an embroidery machine and buy a lot of thread colors. Just another check to do when we have thread breaks. Oh, well, at least I figured it out.