My avatar was stitched diagonally along with many other quilts and never had a problem with thread breakage. I still use Mettler Silk wrapped thread. Might be the weight of a king size, I don't know. Never made anything larger than a queen. I like the look of cross hatching.

It is my guess that you are using cotton thread. Change to a poly thread and you should not have the breakage. I say this as that has been my experience with cotton thread. I quilt on a longarm machine; stitching in all different directions. Early in my business, I stitched a simple crosshatch border with cotton thread and found that I had thread breakage. A simple tug would break the cotton thread. Not many weeks ago I had a customer ask why I refused to use cotton thread when quilting. I handed her a cone of cottom thread and asked her to try to brake off a piece. She easily broke off a piece; then I gave her a poly wrapped poly cone and asked her to break off a piece. As much as she tried, she was unable to brake a piece off the poly cone. Questioned answered.

I do quilting on a L/A, but I think the principle is the same.........as mentioned your fabric is being sewed on the bias...more " give" from fab than thread and long lines may cause breakage. The way I was taught to do diagonal cross hatching on full top, is by doing a large V or W across several rows...this sort of balances the stress......no problems with breaking threads...so far anyway...10+ yrs

Just a caution in case this is your problem. If you store your thread where the sun shines on it, your thread will degrade in the area the sun hits, so when you use it to sew, it is very weak in that area, and will break. I had some older thread I bought disolve, about every three to four inches when I washed the skirt I used it on. What a mess! Now my thread lives in a dark closet. It is not pretty to look at that way, but it only takes one of these incidents to learn a valuable and expensive lesson.

can you use cone thread (poly) on babylock embroidery machine. I have been told to only use the small thread,
Florani ?

Sherian,
I have the Babylock Elegante and I use the large cones all the time with the cast iron thread holder set behind the machine and in line with thread guides. You must watch the thread and make sure it does not get caught and I thread it through the bobbin guide as well. Also often I use silicone spray and netting for the thread. The silicone on the thread is really nice and helps it glide through the machine. Did 150 placemats for my cousins son wedding and only had problems on 1 or 2 of them. The thread I use is mixed some Hemingworth, Sulky, Coats and Clark and now am using Glide. Hope this helps.

Lisa

Yes I was using cotton thread but I am now using a very strong polyester thread. I had tested the King Tut thread and thought it seemed strong enough. That is the last time I use it for crosshatch. I should have known better. I made a test piece and I couldn't break the polyester thread no matter how hard I pulled on it.

Hello...I learned a good lesson from a very experienced quilter....She let me know sometimes the thread sometimes ages and starts to brittle a bit. his sometimes causes breakage. She brought out some stuff and dabbled a little on the spool length on the thread. I asked her what she was putting on the thread and she said silicone gel. (it also comes in a spray). She told me it brings old thread back to life and puts elasticity back in the thread and it would stop the breakage.....Sure nuf...Worked!!!!! I know have some...And have used it. I had some thread that gave me same issues and now...I can use it again.works like a champ. You can find it in any sewing machine shop. Haven't looked for it in Joanns, but did find it in a sewing machine shop.

did you lower the feed dogs that might be the problem or sounds like tension too ,try looking it up with superior threads the needle could be wrong size for your thread