Yarn or Fabric

bamamama - I also used to live in Jersey! I lived in Bound Brook for a bit as well as Whitehouse - I grew up in Califon. We moved to Califon from Howell right before I started 7th grade. My parents & older sister still live in Califon - although my folks live for half the year in St Thomas, USVI. My younger sister is in Basking Ridge, right along Main Street.

Small world!!

butterflywing

bamamama/yarn or fabric

i live in metuchen. before that, montclair.

bama, tell me: pigtail! i have never threaded the pigtail in my entire life. in the instructions there is no mention of the pigtail. am i correct in assuming that the pigtail is the small curly wire spring coming out of the bobbin case? i don't even know how to thread the pigtail. btw, that link is obsolete.

i have it kind of working by having the top thread tight enough to be pulling the bottom thread up. there are no more loose threads on the bottom, BUT i know that the top thread is too tight. it keeps breaking and the tight part seems to be at the point where the thread goes around the tension discs. up until that point the thread is a good tension. after that, it's too tight.
even when i loosen the disc all the way, it still runs tight. i just can't figure this one out. i changed spools of thread (same type) and rethreaded different ways and changed spool holders.
it SEEMS to be somewhere between the tension disc and the take-up lever. i am going so slowly i feel like i'm going in reverse. when i finish this, i'll have to go back to the top to re-do a lot of it. it's all straight line echo stitching, which i never did before. curved stitching is so much easier with fewer stops and starts. i do notice that the professional quilters do beautiful feathers and other curves but i don't see too much straight line echo (i do see channel) and i think i know why. not that my work with curves will improve if the tension improves.

can you think of any reason that the problem should be where i think it is? if charisma or someone would like to add to this conversation i would love to hear from them.