I was happy until....
 

I am making my daughter a quilt for her birthday. And I thought today would be the day that I take the plunge and try fmq. I did a quick tester piece...everything looked good. Top and bottom. No eyelashes. (YAH!!!) Tension was at 3, feed dogs down, didn't change my stitch length...and it FINALLY looked good. Most of the time in practice, I always had eyelashes. So, I was thrilled when my tester piece didn't have any!

So...I started quilting. It was going GREAT! One half of the quilt done....back looks good. Front doesn't look too shabby for a first time.

Then I ran out of bobbin thread. I reloaded, didn't change anything, and started quilting again. Now, I have eyelashes. Help! What did I do wrong?

First, make sure that the bobbin is wound well. A badly wound bobbin can cause problems. If you have a removable bobbin case, take it out and run a pin under the spring; lint can get in there. Rethread the entire machine, including taking out the bobbin and re-seating.

Also check underneath the throat plate and remove any lint buildup there.

Sometimes if my bobbin gets too full, it will cause problems too.

Yes, an overfilled bobbin is not good!

Ok. Grabbed a new bobbin, and rethreaded it, but didn't fill it all the way up. (just under half) Tried another tester piece, and this time it worked fine. Ugh. So, the seam ripper and I became friends and I took out all the quilting that had eyelashes. :( Gonna try again! Thank you for your help!

Ok...now the bottom looks fine but I'm getting eyelashes on the TOP?!!!

Make sure the bobbin is unwinding in the right direction. It shouldn't matter but sometimes it does.

Take the time to rethread the top also :o)

I want to give a big thank you to those that helped me earlier. In both cases, it seemed like it was my bobbin. After removing and replacing the bobbin a few MILLION times, my sewing machine started working right again. No eyelashes top or bottom! I actually finished quilting my first FMQ quilt. **squee**

Persevering pays off! Good for you!