I, too, cleaned and oiled my machine this weekend and made a world of difference I do de-liint the bobbin area every time I change bobbins, but my machine was making an unfamiliar noise. I thought it was a dull needle, so changed the needle. However, the noise was still there, The machine was sewing fine so I just ignored it for a while. When I finished the binding (Yahoo!), I removed the throat plate, cleaned the whole bobbin are completely, and oiled it. Wow, now it's soooo quiet!

As for using the canned air, I had an instructor use it one time and I commented on the inadvisability of it. She said it's fine - but blow from the back of the machine so anything that blows out goes to the front and isn't going to get pushed back into the mechanism. When I do use the air, I do it from the back. It's surprising how much junk gets blown out of that area! I also have a small vacuum clean that I use from time to time.

My machine is just purrring along now!

I am surprised you were able to let it get that large. My machine will absolutely scream at me if I forget to clean it every week.

It reminds me of when my DH vacuums. He always shows me the balls of fur in the canister and says he has enough to make a new cat. Looks like you have a good start on a new quilt!