I need help. I have a wonderful 1940 Singer 201-2 that makes great stitches. I was planning to use this machine to free-motion quilt a t-shirt quilt for my DDIL.

I dropped the feed dogs and installed the darning foot, and used a scrap of quilt sandwich to begin practicing. Every time I try to stitch, the thread breaks or a tangled mess of thread develops. I've tried adjusting the tension and made sure the bobbin area was clear of lint and thread. Nothing I try seems to work.

After putting the feed dogs back up and re-installing the presser foot, it's back to making wonderful stitches again.

I'm at a complete loss.

You need to contact Lostn51 because he is our singer expert. Hopefully he can tell you what the problem is.

Be sure that when you FMQ you have the presser foot in down position. Even thought the feed dogs are lowered, the darning foot has to be down, otherwise there is no tension applied to the top thread and the bobin thread will nest like crazy.
Hope this helps.

Yes, are you sure you put the presser foot into the down position?

Yes, I'm sure the presser foot was down. However, I had backed the pressure way off on the foot - maybe that was the issue?

Could be. The way the darning foot works is it goes up and down with the needle. In the down position, it is holding the layers in place for the stitch to be formed. In the up position, it is allowing you to move the fabric easily between stitches. If there isn't enough pressure when the foot is in the down position, that could be why you are getting the thread nests and problems. Typically you would lower the pressure on the presser foot only if you have the feed dogs up and need the foot higher to allow for thicknesses that wouldn't otherwise feed easily.

Oh, my. Hope that was clearer than mud!

Try taking the stitch lenght down to almost zero or even zero. I had a similar issue on very old Singer.

That's the one thing I haven't tried yet. I will try.

That is what I was going to say- not working with a Singer, but had the same thing happen this morning... My DS was asleep (works at night), when he got up I said did you hear me yelling at the sewing machine? LOL

The nests on the bobbin side usually mean that there's not enough tension - either the presser foot is not down or the presser foot *is* down and the thread is by-passing the tension disks or the tension isn't set high enough. Usually, the tension will be slightly less than for machine guided sewing with the same materials and thread - not hugely so.

Set your bobbin tension to accommodate the thread you're using in the bobbin, then balance the upper tension with the bobbin tension so that you're getting a nice even stitch on the top side and the bobbin side of your fabric.

The fact that the thread is breaking could mean that the eye of the needle is too small for the thread or maybe there's a burr in the needle eye or in the hole in the needle plate that's only coming into play when you're moving the fabric freely under the presser foot.

Try changing your needle - put in either a larger needle or the same size needle with a large eye (metallic or topstitching)

Check the top and underside of the needle plate and the inside of the needle hole for nicks or tiny burrs that might be shredding your thread.

Sew slowly and make bigger stitches and see if the problem gets better or if it gets worse.

Post back and tell us what you find. :) Good luck!