Upper thread on embroidery machine is not "feeding"
 

I have a Brother PE 500 and it is threaded with black upper thread and white in the bobbin. I am embroidering some words and they look fine on both sides of the fabric, but they are all white! The black thread just sits there when I run the machine and doesn't feed through the needle. I have rethreaded this machine until I am totally frustrated. Has anyone ever had a problem like this (not the frustration problem, the problem with the upper thread LOL)?

Try taking the bobbin out of machine, remove bobbin from case and make sure threads are going through case proper way then replace in machine....works for me sometimes.

If your upper thread isn't feeding, then something could be interfering with the thread. I have had the thread catch on the spool or on part of the machine and wouldn't do anything even though the needle was threaded. The other thing is...it has to go through the tensioner and the take up lever for it to sew properly. I don't know your machine, but those of a couple things that are common to all sewing machines.

I agree with Hcim55 in that I would take the bobbin out after threading the top, then hold the upper thread in my hand and see if it goes down into the bobbin area. Warning, when I do this with my Big Brother, I usually have to take it all apart to get the thread out. If it goes down into the bobbin area, then the problem is most likely in the bobbin area. I had the wrong bobbins in my machine. They were just slightly smaller, but it caused my machine not to stitch properly and skipped a bunch.

I had this issue with my ruby and the problem was my bobbin was not in properly, check your bobbin is the right one (if you have more than one machine with different bobbies) bobbin wound correctly and bobbin inserted and threaded correctly.

Is the needle inserted the right way, and pushed all the way up. Can you pull the thread through the needle easily if the foot is up, if not your upper tension may be too tight or thread caught on something - and if you can, your bobbin may be too loose.

By now you have probably found that your top thread is hung somewhere on the spool. Same happened with me yesterday--it started a word in green, then became white on top and bottom. It was top thread hanging up in the cut slit on the bottom of the spool. I HOPE your problem was as simple as that!

That had happened right at the beginning of this problem. I put the spool on the way it is shown in the instruction book and that put the slit at the left ( the spool lies horizontally) so that the thread caught in it.: I then had to place the spool backwards from what is shown in the instruction.

I am sure that I am using the correct bobbin. I have threaded it several times, re-checked in the instructions, etc. I have had the bobbin issue before and when I did the bobbin thread made loops on top of the fabric. That is not the case here; the embroidery looks perfect - all done with only the bobbin thread!

I have re-threaded the upper thread several times and even took a flashlight and really checked to make sure that it caught that arm (can't recall what it is called).

I plan on taking it to the repairman next week. Stay posted for what he says.

Thank you to everyone for your good suggestions!