Thread Bubble?
 

Another basic question that I probably would have learned had I took Home-Ec in high school LOL - This one is related to thread/stitching.

The best way I can explain it is like the machine is stitching just fine, but somehow there is also another string that somehow covers 5-6 stitches and just kind of hangs on top of the other stitches.

Is this potentially just a tension thing that I need to adjust - or something that I'm doing?

Well, I took Home-Ec in school & don't remember learning about this (of course that was 500 years ago...:D). It sounds like it may be a flaw in the thread. Seems like I've had that before where the thread has a piece where it's not twisted in with the other thread tightly.

Are you holding the ends when you start sewing? It may be the bobbin being pulled to the top.

Also if you are sewing fast with lots of starts and stops, the bobbin can rotate upon stopping and the tension mess up just as you described. There's a name for it that escapes me at the moment, but it can be fixed with a little flat metal insert that goes in your bobbin case before the bobbin goes in. Any shop that sells sewing machines should have them.

if you think it's bobbin backlash you can use Sew Genies in the bobbin case to prevent this. But one thing a person in the beginner class I help with found is that her thread spool was a "flat"wound and she was using a machine that had the horizontal spool pin--the thread kept catching and she ended up with weird stitches.

From the description it could be any of these things, or something else entirely. I think we could answer better with a picture.

This happens to me when I don't have both threads behind the needle and under the foot when I start sewing.

@osewme - It was thread that was leftover from one of my mom's projects several years ago, so yeah, probably not the greatest quality at this point :p

@Barb in Louisiana - No, I don't hold the ends of the thread. I typically have enough excess thread that it just kind of drapes off to the side (The older machine doesn't have one of the extended tables/sewing surface)

@sewbizgirl - That's probably the most likely culprit, as this was my first big project and I was started/stopped fairly frequently.

@Onebyone - That's another likelihood and something I've caught happening quite a bit.



I'll be getting a new machine for my birthday in a few weeks, so I'm hesitant to buy anything else for this one - but I appreciate the advice!