I forgot to say that my husband ordered a straight stitch needle plate for me for Christmas. Looking forward to trying it!

I was going to suggest leaders and enders as well, but first I would change your needle. I was having the same problem last week.

I'm with justflyingin, I use my starter/enders over & over till they are full then toss. I'm too busy just piecing to try to figure out out to piece & make something from the starter/ender too. Maybe in about 5 yrs I can be close to good enough to do that, until then when one starter gets too full I just reach in my trash can & pull out another odd shape too small scrap.

Also same as quilt1950 I was taught to hold my tails, but once I found out about leaders/ender I do that now, but there are occasions when I still hold the tails.

That's interesting news, and how did you find this out, I didn't read that any place, I need to play around with more options, I guess....just went & tried it and selected stitch width safety; then selected zig zag stitches & their width will only go to "0". I wondered if I would remember that I had selected this or think my machine was broken next time. So shut off and when you turn it on again you get the message machine set for straight stitck OK? Thanks so much!

For those of you who sew on a slip of packing paper or a note pad paper - does this tend to dull your needle like cutting on paper dulls your scissors?

I use leaders also, but if you don't want to do that, start with your needle down into the fabric and make sure you upper thread and bobbin threads are pulled to the back.. You can use Bonnie Hunter's method of leaders and enders and make little 4 patch squares out of 2" fabric squares..

Yes. This is why, when I'm paper piecing, I switched from stitching through the paper to folding the paper and stitching next to it. Silver lining? No tearing off all those horrid little bits! :D

Honestly I have not noticed that using the paper dulls my needle, nothing noticeable anyways. It works for me and avoids the tangle of thread going down into my machine, as I said it does not do this, unless I am working with half square triangles, then I automatically put paper underneath.

I also will use a leader, but my machine doesn't do that real often. What I did do was put a piece of bright red ( think it's electrical) tape on one corner of my straight stitch needle plate. It still fits fine etc., and I always have a visual reminder before I switch to a zigzag or something other than a straight stitch. I have it on all three of machines SSN plate. Works good!