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!

Awesome glad it work out!!!!

Thank goodness you got your sewing machine working like it should....now you'll have to post pictures of your work!!!

Yay.. glad it all worked out..

glad you fixed your problem but I've found with my machine I always have to do a bit of the tester before I get back to work on the quilt after changing the bobbin. My machine just doesn't like the change sometimes. I'm into the swing of it, but it does mean breaking the top thread for no reason which I don't like. Funny, I don't change any settings, just stitch a bit to get the kinks out and it fixes itself. How crazy is that? It's not a computerised machine either!

What are "eyelashes??"

So glad you posted this, and that it worked out. It makes me think I might be able to do this. Do you have pictures?

It is -20 below here this morning, so good morning to get lost in the sewing room. I fmg all my quilts and have learned that you should test your stitches each time I change bobbins, just is case. Once in a while the tension changes, but not often.

Remember too, if your hands are moving too fast,...faster than your foot pedal speed, this can cause eyelashes as well.

Congratulations! Glad you hung in there - we just need pictures now!

I have had this happen to me too, but I keep a test sandwich: scrap fabric and batting (mine is around 6"x 8") and after I change thread or bobbin, I sew a few stitches to make sure I don't have problems. I don't know if your tester piece was just fabric or fabric and batting, but sometimes that makes a difference.

I have been working on FMQ off and on for a while - still consider myself a beginner. What I found I was doing on my machine was leaning on the knee pedal to lift the foot while continuing to sew. That really causes big eyelashes. Now I take off the knee attachment when I'm quilting, and I'm having much more success on that end of it. Still struggling with other issues like even stitching, etc.- but making progress!

This is going to sound really weird but I have a Pfaff and my older bobins that are smooth will cause eye lashes while the newer bobins with an indent work great. Also try rethreading your machine if it is designed to use two threads on one side for the take up it may work better.

Loose stitches that look "sort of" like eyelashes!

Here is a photo of what eyelashes look like. You can click on the photo to get an enlargement. Eyelashes can occur on either the top or bottom of a quilt, and are more common on circles.
http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.c...-or-speed.html

When do we get to see a picture of the quilt???

Way to go!

Glad it worked out for you. It can be so frustrating, so I'm so glad you didn't give up. Cheers to you.

I quilt on a longarm, but every time I change my bobbin, I test my tension on a muslin sandwich I keep just for this purpose. Even using prewound bobbins, I do this. I also use a TOWA gauge with every bobbin and that makes a huge difference. Good for you for getting that FMQ going on your DSM!!