Fortunately I worked it out before completely losing it.

After finishing a rag quilt for my nephew, I thoroughly cleaned my machine to get rid of the residual lint.

Last night, I started a new project and wasted quite a bit of thread when the fabric was not advancing. I disassembled the machine again, checked to make sure that the feed dogs were not blocked and could raise and lower correctly. Still nothing, more thread wasted.

Then I happened to look at the stitch length indicator. Yep - set to a big fat 0 as the last stitches done were to lock the threads.

So, fixed that and created a very impressive birds nest. Disentangled the thread from the bobbin mechanism and started over. Fortunately before starting the next bird's nest I asked myself why the tension would be so terrible - hmmm - could it be that the machine is not correctly threaded AT ALL.

The nearest I can figure is that when I finished winding bobbins I laid the thread over the top of the machine and when I sat down to get started again, simply threaded the needle, assuming I'd run through the other important contact points.

All's well that ends well. I did sew 10 strip sets last night for the 9-patch challenge that I'm participating in. And I was able to solve the problem myself.

Cheers, K

I understand what you are saying. I have done things like that and it has taken me hours to fix.

YAH, !!
Somthing goes wrong here, and I do the same!! Yeikes, most of the time I just need to plug it in... :)

Isn't it surprising that each of us thinks our errors are unique?
We all do it.

I figure there are many who have done this here on the board. In my house though, I am on my own as my DH would just scratch his head and commiserate. My next step was going to be to come here and try to figure out why the feed dogs weren't pulling the fabric.

And I did learn from reading here that the birds nest on the bottom was a top thread tension problem. So I'm very thankful to have this resource.

Cheers, K

I think we all go through this at least once. I am glad you worked it out! I am always cleaning my machine and yes, I often mis-thread a machine.

Learned something new, I didn't know that a birds nest was caused from a top thread tension. Thanks

Me too, sometimes it just helps to say it, or spell. :-D Best part is someone would have had the anwser. :-D

I am happy to hear that you got it all worked out and are happily sewing now :D:D:D

I like to blame my sewing Gremilins when things are done incorrectly in my room LOL. Glad you figured it out. I do not like those Bird nests. LOL