Hope there might be some other Viking owners who could help me understand what I'm doing wrong. I'm having trouble keeping the thread in the "Thread take-up lever"( I looked in the manual for the name of part!).
Sometimes when I go to start a new line of stitching, without any noticable reasons why the thread seems to jump out of the track of the lever. When it does this the thread forms a thread nest on the underside of the bottom layer of fabric and this has to be removed and the machine rethreaded before it will sew again.
I've checked how I thread the machine and the needle is always in the up position. Is there something else I should check? This is the first Viking machine I have ever owned but have a small lightweight Brother machine and it will do the same thing. My old Singer machine would never do this, it might come unthreaded from the needle if the needle wasn't in the highest position when I stopped sewing but the thread would never come out of the tension control. Or is this just something that these new electronic machines do and there's no explanation why.
Hope someone has some suggestions, I just sat down to sew and had it happen three times, each time as I would start a new line of stitching. Never happens at the middle or end of a line of stitching. Really aggravating when you can't figure out what is wrong!!! Chris
p.s. Just had the machine serviced, too!

Don't have one of those machines but try holding onto the thread until you sew a couple of stitches...

Thank you, Bernie. I will try your suggestion. Chris

I have the Husqvarna Viking Prelude 350 and it will do this too. I always make sure that I pull my top thread out a little longer before I start. It's a nusiance but it's better than having to re-thread all the time. The take up lever on this machine just seems to require a longer thread tail.

So glad to hear from another Viking user. I never thought about the lenght of the top thread but most of the time I use the machine's side cutter and thought that the thread pulled out far enough to reach the cutter was sufficient. Will start pulling out a little extra thread and see if that helps. Really appreciate the help here at this forum, I knew there would be someone who understood! Chris

I actually hold on to the thread until it has taken a few stitches.

Penni, thank you for telling me what has worked for you. I've been sewing since high school home ec classes almost fifty years ago. These are things that I never had come across before with any of the machines I've used but most for the part I've used Singer and Brother machines and this kind of thread issue wasn't one with these machines. Chris

I have a Viking mega quilter and a Viking #1; both of the manuals show that after you thread the needle to take the end of the thread and pull it over the thread cutter. This holds the thread out of the way and as your start to quilt the thread will cut so that it won't bunch up your material. The other thing you could do is take a scrap piece of fabric and hand walk a few stitches in it before you start to sew; this creates a feeder piece; when you get to the end of what you are sewing;then put the feeder piece in and sew a few stitches and then cut the thread between your fabric and the feeder piece; this will leave the feeder piece under your presser foot for the next time you get ready to sew.