After months of practice and hesitation, we finally loaded a quilt on our Grandquilter and attempted to start quilting. The last few practice pieces we did were flawless, but when we tried to do the quilt the top thread was breaking on the first or second stitch. AAARRRRGGGHHHH.
We took the thread off and rethreaded, cleaned the bobbin area (again), diddled with tension, still breaking. Repeated the procedure, broke the needle. I probably bent it during one of the many rethreadings.
I called the shop and asked what else to do. She suggested changing thread, cleaning the bobbin area, changing the needle, and oiling the machine. I did all of that, put the tension back where it started, and tried on a practice sandwich. It worked! We messed with it a little and got perfect stitches!
We committed and started on the quilt. So far it looks great. I have about half of the quilt done. I had to stop because I was so tense. I'll start on it again tomorrow and see how far I get. Now I have to watch the rest of the video to see what to do to the end that won't roll up to the machine.
Hopefully I'll have something to post soon. I've admired everyone's quilts for a while but I didn't want to post unfinished quilts, so I haven't posted any of our recent work.
Wish me luck!
Darren