Greetings! I come bearing good news!
Both my sister and I have had this problem with our Janome 6500 and doing freemotion quilting. So I thought there might be more of you out there!
Often when quilting, the bobbin thread would stop feeding and I'd have to stop quilting, raise the needle and yank on the quilt to get it freed.

I just about lost my sanity last night while doing a baby quilt so today when it happened again. I crawled under the quilt with a flashlight and realized that the bobbin thread is catching on the lowered feed dogs...true story! So I took off the needle plate and put a small piece of masking tape over the feed dogs. The needle will pierce the tape and make its own hole as you quilt but I didn't have one CATCH! And I used two full bobbins of thread doing free motion. Last night I stopped counting at ten!!!

BUGS the heck out of me that I paid 2000.00 for a machine that won't free motion quilt without masking tape, but that's life!

Lori

It lease you solved the problem. :thumbup:

I have a 6600 and was wondering if you're using a straight stitch face plate? On mine it came with a wider face plate for the zig-zag and embroidery stitches. I had to purchase the separate face plate for straight stitching and my fabric doesn't get hooked in the feed dogs.

May be something to look into.

I have a 6500,doesn't the glue from the masking tape gum up your needle??

I used regular masking tape and it wasn't a problem at all!

Now that's a great idea!! I will check into it the next trip to the sewing machine store!

Can't you lower the feed dogs?

yes the feed dogs lower but sometimes the bobbin thread catches on the feed dogs where they are hiding below the plate. Sewcrafty's explanation may fix the problem without tape, but it was very frustrating for me to be fmq-ing and having to stop to yank the bobbin thread free. Nasty stuff. The tape will work until I get my new plate!

Aren't we just the greatest group for seeing a problem, solving it and then sharing.

:-)
Sure are!