What do you mean I control the stitch tension?! How? What am I doing to it? I wish I could understand :-(

I have a cheapie Brother and this would happen to me sometimes ... unless I'm misunderstanding what is happening for you. When I have this issue it's because the speed that I'm moving the quilt is too fast with the speed I'm running the machine. I don't know how else to explain it. Basically, if I move the quilt through slower or speed up the machine, the problem goes away. I have found that it works best the faster I go.

Some sewing machines, like the Bernina, have a bobbin case that pulls out when you load the bobbin. With the drop in bobbin, the case usually stays in the machine, but can be removed to clean out lint. There is a very tiny screw in the front near a slot where the thread goes. That tiny screw is the one that gets loosened or tightened slightly.

Janet

I have an Elna 6003 which is about 11 years old now. The instructions tell you to drop the feed dogs, put tension to 8 or 9 (which normally is at 5) and change stitch length to zero. I never have any issues when doing this. You might try it and see. It is not the darning foot causing the problem. I think you might need to increase tension on upper thread. That is why bobbin thread is lying straight. Good luck!

Thank you! I will experiment with that!

Thank you!

I already did try that. My bobbin thread is laying flat no matter what the top tension setting is. And it is just fine when I use the piecing foot.

How about the timing be off? What I mean is, does the hook blade of the bobbin housing line up with the shaft or the hole of the needle when you hand turn the needle knob to the front? You can see this by taking off the needle plate and opening up the bobbin area and removing the bobbin. Hand crank the needle down and watch where it lines up. If you have recently taken the housing out to clean everything, maybe the hook of the housing is not lined up with the needle coming down in order to catch the bobbin thread and draw it up. I may not be explaining this correctly. If you arent sure of how to do this, and you have a LQS or your service tech is close, I would think someone could assist you in getting it back in order. Just a thought anyway. I think you have been given almost every other answer. I sent you a pm that may or may not be the answer either.

Well, I just had a little play with speed. Seems like my width adjuster does not double as speed controller, sadly.

Again, the stupid question: When I upped the speed and slowed my hands I just got lots and lots of little stitches (the bobbin thread is still laying flat, but it would not come out because it is nailed down by a zillion stitches. I don't want to do this because I could never rip anything out, and also I would use a ton of thread!)

Is this what you meant or have I misunderstood? Maybe my definition of slow hands is just waaaaay slow? What sort of stitch length should I be getting?

I did this and the needle is definitely coming down where the cut out space is. It does not come down in the middle, but it goes back up again before it runs out of cutout (otherwise it would hit the plate under the casing, I guess.)

I cant really judge how it lines up with the casing in there, because when I take the top plate off, the casing wont stay down in place and keep popping up when I rotate the wheel.

I am getting grumpy with the machine now. I think I'd better leave it be for a while.

Thanks