Please diagnose my machine
 

I was sewing along and my needle suddenly broke. I changed the needle and now it's skipping stitches. I put in a second needle, same thing. Skipping stitches. Also when I'm sewing the thread seems really loose and floppy. So loose that the thread is coming out of that little metal piece just above the needle.

Loose floppy thread
Skipping stitches

I cleaned under the bobbin real good.

Make sure you got all of the pieces of the broken needle. Can you look under the stitch plate for thread? Try rethreading the machine and bobbin area. Also double check your tension settings. You may have accidentally change something. Good luck.

Oh. One other thing -- if your bobbin has a spring in it and it came out, make sure you re-inserted it the correct way.

Whenever this happens to me, it usually means that I have the bobbin or bobbin case in the wrong way... don't know why, but sometimes I get the bobbin in the case backwards, and it creates all kinds of problems....

That just happened to me after cleaning out my bobbin case. I was so frustrated, nothing I did made a difference. So, I backtracked and removed the whole sole plate and bobbin casing, put it all back together again, rethreaded the top thread, made sure my needle was in all the way, put In the bobbin thread, and checked the tension, which was correct already. Still didn't work! So, back off came the sole plate and bobbin case, and back together again, and I realized I didn't have the bobbin casing in correctly. It is a little tricky to get lined up just so. Now, she purrs like a kitten! DH even asked if I got the bobbin case in correctly and I swore I did! Won't do that again!

I've had this issue when the arms in the bobbin area come off the pegs that hold in the bobbin case pieces...

I know your pain!! I just called the place (LQS...I have a Viking Topaz 30) that I got my machine on Friday with the same problem. I tried EVERYTHING!! Re-threading a million times, tearing the bobbin case apart, changing the needle etc. In talking to their tech the first thing (and always the first question) is what type of thread I had Clark & Coats....I had just finished a t-shirt quilt and it worked fine, I was sewing a pinwale cord. dress for my grandaughter and I had to "fight" with the machine. Finally got that done and had started on a cotton dust ruffle with the same problems. He had told me he could look at it but the first thing he was going to do was change the thread to Mettler. I had some so I changed the thread to the Mettler and it sewed like a charm again. He told me that C&C has a wax coating on it and sometimes causes the problem. The funny thing was that I sewed a few rows (with the Mettler) on a scrap and changed back to the C&C and it continues to sew like a charm. I have since made 3 sets of flannel jammies and finished my dust ruffle with the C&C and all is well. (at this point anyways)

So I guess try changing the thread brand and see if that helps??? Good luck.

Did you re-thread the machine? Loose floppy thread and skipping stitches on my machine means I missed the take up arm when I threaded my machine.

Other than that ... make sure you got all the pieces of the needle from the bobbin area.

If still not good, the broken needle may have messed up the timing which means a trip to the doctor.

I agree re-do every thing!

I was having that problem with my machine at a quilt class and the instructor noticed that I had missed one step in threading my machine. She changed it quickly and it worked perfectly.