Ruler quilting on a Jazz 2 machine
 

Hello from northeast Nebraska! I have stalked this forum for years and learned a lot, but never posted anything! I'm looking for help with a Babylock Jazz 2 machine. I bought it in September and love it. In the last week or two, I have been trying to do some ruler quilting on it. I am having trouble with the thread breaking (shredding) after about 15 inches of quilting. I have adjusted tension, changed needles, several times, and don't know what I'm doing wrong. It seems to stitch beautifully using a walking foot or regular stitching. Any other suggestions?

Welcome from Ontario, Canada. Do you have a ruler foot? Did you put the stable sticky tape on the back of the ruler? Are you using Machinger gloves or similar to help move the quilt? All those things help to get a consistent speed of the quilt sandwich through the machine. If you move the sandwich in jerky motions because you don’t have proper grip, you will get thread shredding and breakage.

Welcome from Michigan!:)

Welcome to the board! I'm not sure if it is a needle thing, a thread thing or a machine thing causing you to shred , as I don't do a lot of machine quilting but I do darning (believe it or not) for my boy's jeans. I find that going slower, not pulling the material that much, smaller stitches as opposed to big stitches, making sure that I'm on a slippery bottom (I have a teflon sheet on the underside), and using a brand new needle before I start, all helps. Good luck and hugs!!

There are a lot of different reasons for thread breakage as stated by others. Have you checked your thread tension? When I started ruler quilting I found that I pulled on the quilt to hard or I was trying to go to fast. I was told when starting that if you could adjust speed to medium then turn foot pedal backwards and mash it to the floor would help to regulate speed. Usually we try to move our hands faster than the machine can sew. Also found that certain brands of thread will not work in my machine when FMQ or ruler quilting so now I use Glide or Isacord 40wt poly. Try watching videos on Sew Steady or Angela Walters.