GRRRRR*#@!* Still happening. Broke 3 more needles! I'm starting to worry I'll have a shard of needle in my eye before this is figured out. I slowed down, put on some music, ate a snickers, and relaxed - especially around the turns. Broke one within a minute. I honestly felt like things were flowing very smooth, like I was moving the fabric at the right speed for the machine's speed, stitches were beautiful. Never felt as if I was pulling or struggling against the flow of things. Even made big slow curves and straight lines out of curiousity. But it still happened.
So I tried taking the feed dog cover/darning plate off. My machine will only go down to a .5 stitch length. (This is aggrivating on another front too, because I can't do a perfect satin stitch when I can't take my zig zag down to a zero setting either). BUT... even with the plastic cover off, and the stitch length set to .5, I still broke a needle hitting the metal plate that is part of the machine itself. It actually left a mark where it hit - dead center on the front edge of the hole.
Over the past two days I have had several different sizes of regular point needles in the machine. I'm using thread that is labeled for "machine quilting" and don't seem to have any issues with tension, etc.
I have even taken off the metal plate and put it back on twice wondering if it is somehow shifting out of position.
I can't think of a single thing I did between the two sewing sessions. The first day I only stopped because my eyes were getting tired. Came in the next day, turned on the machine to pick up where I left off and I've been stuck in this hole ever since.
I have a headache.