Just curious how many bobbins you use in a day. I don't think my bobbins are any smaller than others, and I have emptied 11 bobbins in the last two day. This is on a Viking Mega Quilter. How many do you use?

Depends on how much I sew...how much I have to UNsew, and what kind of stitch I'm using - decorative and zigzags use more thread than straight stitching, so for piecing, a bobbin lasts a while. I don't do very intricate quilting yet, but the most I've used for that is five bobbins to quilt one double size quilt. I don't think I've ever used 11 in two days! lol

Yesterday I emptied 5 on my vintage kenmore doing fmq and 3 on my brother xr40 piecing.

You ladies must sew all day long. I've never emptied more than one or two a day. But I'm a part-time sewer, maybe an hour or two in the evening and one afternoon on weekends.

It's christmas time so I sew a lot, The rest of the year I sew much less.

I've never thought about it. Whenever I change a bobbin, I think, "Girl, you should design machines with ginormous bobbins. You'd be a billionaire."

I sew off and on between checking the computer all day. There isn't much else to do but clean house, and unfortunately I avoid it like the plague.

You would be a billionaire, especially with longarmers. Nothing is worse than changing a bobbin in the middle of a run and having it mess up.

I never thought about how many either, until now. I need to have the auto bobbin winder worked on, but don't have the money for the dealer to work on it. I have to wind my bobbins on a Brother machine, so I wound all of them I had at one time. I thought it would take a lot longer to go through them before I had to wind again. Was I ever wrong!!!

I go through a lot of bobbins of thread a day when I am sewing. I like to piece with my Juki but when I "fill" the bobbins they don't completely fill. Only about three fourths of the bobbin gets thread befoe it stops.
I too would like to come up with an invention for using larger bobbins in our machines.

I am still waiting for them to invent a bobbin-less machine... run the thread straight off the spool :D:D:D

That would be wonderful;> My Bernina 830 has a ginormous (:>) bobbin and it's so hard to go back to small ones again. I thought most longarms had huge bobbins too? Which ones don't? I would really have second thoughts about buying a longarm with a small bobbin.

That would be Great :!: LOL

Ooh! Ooh! I'm checking out that Bernina. I was going to ask my dealer about Janome and the Ginormous Dream but I'll go check out Bernina while I'm at it.

And, count bobbin changes until then. Thanks to the OP. :0)

What's the Ginormous Dream?

A couple a day for me. You must be sewing non-stop! :-D

Most use an M bobbin, which is larger than the other bobbins. I think it is still a pain when they run out in the middle of a row on the quilt.

I go through at least a couple an hour piecing...sometimes eight a day or so, depends on what else I am doing....

A bobbin the size of a Mack truck.

I use bottom line thread they last soooo much longer!

I am lucky my longarm does a great job filling spare bobbins while quilting. Love that. If some one could design a ginormous bobbin definately would be a gazillionaire.

It all depends on what I'm working on. I had one quilt that took about a bobbin per block, and I'm using the M size bobbins - the big ones, with Bottom Line (a thin thread)! Here's a link to that quilt:

http://wheatridgestudios.blogspot.co...t-is-done.html

Everything in the background of the white blocks was pebbled to raise the design in the middle.

It depends on what I am working on, but I usually fill 3 bobbins before I ever start sewing so I don't have to stop to fill a bobbin. The basics white, ecru, grey, black, I try to have 4 or 5 filled and ready to go. I don't usually keep track of how many I actually use, but I know it's a lot.

WOW !! Have I got a lot to catch up to you all !!!! WOW WOW WOW !!

If I'm piecing, no more than 2 bobbins. If I'm quilting, no more than 6. Longer than that and I get really bad shoulder pain!

Holy cow! That seems like some fast sewing. (Or I'm really slow) If I sew for 6-7 hours, I might use 2 bobbins. Yep, I'm slow :lol:

I worked a short stint in a factory--was faster than most of the workers who had been there for years, but have been sewing---GULP--over 50 years now! My friends say my speed scares them!

Now that would be the best upgrade to any sewing machine.

I just love the larger sized bobbin on my 830 Bernina , i use on a good day of sewing 3 bobbins and if I am heavy in to embroidery may be 4/5 in a day.Just love my Bernina .

I usually use Bottom Line in the bobbin so it goes a long ways as its a finer thread. I still go through several in a day of sewing.

I only use Bottom Line in my bobbins
I can do a twin top with one bobbin

Where do you get the Bottom Line thread? Can you get it at JoAnn's or Hancock's or do you have to buy online?

Bottom line is polyester...I don't do polyester. Especially for piecing.

I get it at Joanns

Now, I like your idea best of all. Are you working on that invention... in your spare time?! LOL :lol:

I never seem to have enough bobbins filled or empty. Sandy

That's one reason I love to use Bottom Line thread from Superior. You can put so much thread on the bobbin, it lasts a lot longer. And I fill up quite a few bobbins at one time so I don't have to stop and fill one up each time I run out.

[quote=MaggieLou]Where do you get the Bottom Line thread? Can you get it at JoAnn's or Hancock's or do you have to buy online

http://www.superiorthreads.com
some quilt shops carry it and Bob Purcell vends at the really big shows.
I see a comment that someone got it at her Joanns; mine doesn't carry it.

ABSOLUTELY!!! WHY can't that be done? I know how a sewing machine works in that the top thread goes around the whole bobbin to pull up each stitch. Seems to me that the bottom thread could come off a spool, loop around a "bobbin case" and get pulled for a stitch, then the next, and so on.

[quote=gollytwo]Our Joann's doesn't carry it either. They have other brands.

I keep thinking: Why don't they make a bobbin where you just use your spool of thread and run it through the bobbin mechanism. Then you'd almost never have to change the bobbin. I learned something last night: I was making a label and putting a decorative stitch around the edge. Right, ran out of bobbin thread. I wasn't easy to get my pattern lined up again so there was no break in the pattern. Moral of the story: Always have a full bobbin when doing decorative stitches. I learned the hard way.