Stupid tension, stupid me
 

I'm totally frustrated tonight. I did a pantograph row, rolled, then to my horror discovered that occasionally were big giant loops of thread on the underside of the quilt. What causes that? How do I stop it? Do I need to rip out areas to redo? How do I keep it from happening again. I had used a mirror and checked the tension underneath but didn't see the big giant threads until I rolled. ARRGH

You need to determine which thread is the loose, hanging one to know which one is too loose. Is it the top thread, or the bobbin thread? Get in the habit of stitching on a practice piece before your project, both to check tension and to stitch off any oily thread from having just oiled the bobbin race.

Yes I would take out the section(s) that are not good.......time consuming, yes, but also a lesson learned.....check your tensions....or maybe, if you don't have stitch regulator, your "speed" is inconsistent......or, the most common reason...a tiny piece of lint somewhere in your bobbin case that is the culprit...been there, done that.........

If it is not your quilt then it has to be redone. If it is your quilt you can decide if you can live with it. Tension seems to be the biggest issue with machine quilting. I know it's frustrating because I've tried it. That's why I don't have a long arm, too much trouble for me.

I have had this happen when quilting on my Bernina 1530. Usually I have changed threads so I try to remember to use the test sandwich to make sure everything is correct. Sometimes also if your stitches are larger then normal around curves the problem can occur which means your tension setting are just on the edge of being correct. HOPE this makes sense.

I use the techniques in this video to set tension:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1mRhcquZTM
although I cannot loosen my bobbin thread as much as he does (bobbin screw falls out!).

Since it's just an occasional "blip", it really sounds like lint in the bobbin to me. The video shows how to clean the spring in the bobbin case. Second-most likely cause for me would be inconsistent speed.

What kind of setup are you using? Sometimes people have tweaks for specific machines.

I get this sometime and I don't really know why but on my quilts here is what I have done - not sure if I can explain this.

Thread a hand needle with matching thread, thread it through the loop leaving a tail, tie a knot and then bury that look just like you would threads.

That's a great tip quiltstringz!

I do agree that sometimes it's maintenance required in the bobbincase / hook area, but in most cases for me it's been an unbalanced stitch and usually the top thread has been the problem. I have had loops top and bottom from top thread. Before I start a quilt now, I usually lay a small piece of fabric over the batting left over on the edges and test sew -fast- loops and sharp fast zig zags to adjust my tension on the LA. It shows up eyelashing and tight tension really quickly this way. Then I reduce both tensions to the point where there isn't any "pulling" of the fabric at the zig zags, and quilt my heart out on the main event. :)

The loops can also be from backlash. Are you using magnaglide bobbins or regular? Do you have a backlash spring in your bobbin case? Are they only at direction changes or logical "stops"?

I wrote a couple of posts on my blog last week about tension. Longarms are no different - in principle - when it comes to tension than a domestic, just a little more spectacular about highlighting a tension problem, because there are so many examples in such a short amount of time. If the mods don't think it's trying to drive traffic to my site, I will post the links.