Twolees

Rachel, I would be interested to know how you worked out the problem with the BSR on the Berninia 440. I am having the exact experience you described, even to the point of the small quilt sandwich working fine but going to the quilt I continue to get the skipping. I have had my machine for two years and have had success with FMQ, but just in the past month have had problems.
Roberta

JudyFaye

Wow! Interesting reading about the BSR. I have an 820 and despite having taken it to the dealer and had the new spring put in, it is still skipping stitches. On a 42 by 48 inch quilt yesterday, it skipped 4 times. I also have an issue with the auto threader not threading at times. I have to rethread the whole thing numerous times to get it to work. I discovered yesterday that turning it off and back on and then rethreading worked. Go figure. I have mine set up on a Pinnacle quilt frame. I tried pushing quilts through by hand and I just didn't have the hand strength to do it. I do find this Bernina is quite picky about everything as compared to my old Janome 10,000 which just sews through anything with any needle and any thread at just about any tension and never skips a stitch! Too bad the throat is so small and it has no stitch regulator. Otherwise I'd never buy a Bernina!

An Arm Long

I had that problem with my BSR once when I was using the clear plastic foot piece. I realized that it really had alot of lint on it and that perhaps it was obstructing the vision of the "eye". So I cleaned it off well and it worked just fine from then on. What foot piece are you using?

bethboerne

I see this thread is over two years old so I hope someone sees my reply. I'm having the exact same problem that Rachelcb80 had. The needle goes up and down but the top thread doesn't catch in the bobbin. It'll stitch along just fine and then start skipping and it won't stop if I try to keep going with the intention of coming back to fix the stitches. I have a practice sandwich of the same fabrics, same batting, same spray basting, same thread, same settings, and it works fine. I notice on the quilt that the bobbin stitches are very long on the back. I've tightened up the top tension (to 5) and when it's stitching fine, the back looks good. But then the bobbin stitches get really long and next thing I know I've got an inch of loose thread on the top. I'm on the verge of throwing the whole darn quilt away - and it was a bear to sew as I appliqued on over 100 circles and it represents a huge investment of time. But the quilting is looking so bad at this point that I'm embarrassed to give it to my friend. I mean it's so bad that I'm thinking about putting it on my dog's bed. And that's bad. I've used my Aurora 440QE for 4 years and have experienced this problem several times, but it would stop doing it. I've changed the thread (using top quality threads), changed the needle, tried a different bobbin, rethread the top and bottom, cleaned it - but it simply will not cooperate on this particular quilt. This doesn't happen when I use the walking foot - just the BSR. It happens whether I'm using BSR1 or BSR2. Suggestions?

bethboerne

One other thing - I see that An Arm Long suggested that the foot might be causing a problem. I was using the open-toed metal foot but it kept catching on the long threads so I switched to the clear plastic foot. I don't think it's the BSR - but it only happens when I'm in BSR mode.

bethboerne

Aha! I'm new to the forum and just realized this was 9 pages long. LOL So I saw suggestions about the BSR spring & taking it to the dealer, so that's what I'm doing tomorrow. Hmmm I wonder if the spring has weakened over the 4 years I've been using it...

tsnana2000

Try changing the needle. My BSR would sometimes skip stitches most of the time just changing the needle and rethreading the machine helped.

jkeller1405

Rachelcb80, I know this reply might be 2 years too late - but I found you thread when I was having the exact same problem as you were. I have a Bernina 830e and a bsr foot it would quilt perfectly on a quilt sandwich - but when I tried to do FMQ on my twin size quilt - it would keep skipping. It was driving me crazy - I really mean crazy - I tried everything - then I remembered reading somewhere to try a 90/14 stretch needle or ball point needle and I finally tried it and the amazing thing is that it worked. I now can actually FMQ and not have it skipping all the time.

sammygirlqt

I have been reading this thread with interest. I have a Bernina 153QE, no BSR and last Christmas I was trying to FMQ with nothing but skipped stitches. I was using a microfleece for a backing and the dealer said it was the backing so I ripped it all out and put on a different one (flannel) and it quilted perfect. I tell you I was pulling my hair out for a few days but some of these new fibers don't quilt well.

sevenstarks

Hi there Rachel,
I just recently bought a used Bernina 440QE and it came with the BSR. I'm working on it now, and I'm getting HUGE stitch jumps using BSR 1. After reading your posts and replies I changed to a Schmetz quilting needle, and I'm using Gutterman 100% cotton thread, and it is jumping big time. It stitches well, then suddenly, I get three huge jumps/skips within 4 inches. I will keep reading but I'm wondering what your final resolution was. Having bought this on eBay, I do know that the machine had very few sewing hours (like 5!) on it (found a youtube video that showed how to go into service mode), but based on the age of the machine and the BSR, wondering if it needs the updates.