OT, sort of - stitching problem with Bernina 440QEE

Well, bless your heart. I'll help. I have and love a Bernina 440 QE. Do you have my real email address for a off-group exchange? I can call you on my unlimited (!) cell phone and we'll do the threading inch by inch. I really think that's all it is. Polly

"Carole-Retired and Loving It" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Carole, have you looked closely at your bobbin case? I found that one of mine (I have a Bernina that's very similar to yours, though it doesn't have the embroidery module) was allowing the thread to move from between the two little "hook-like" things that poke down into the hole where the thread exits the case. I hope that was at least semi-clear. Anyway, my dealer simply replaced the case, and the problem stopped.

Now that you mention it, Sandy - my 440QE arrived with what seemed to me to be the wrong bobbin case. Might not have been but didn't look right to me. Of course, I bought mine one dark and stormy night out behind the laundromat. Polly

Like you both said, it sounds like upper threading to me. Good luck, Carole. If all else fails, sleep on it.

ep

ROFLOL! Polly, there you go again with the funny post and no spew warning! ;)

I just talked to Carole on the phone - she speaks southern so we were able to communicate just fine. She had realized that she needed to question the tension on the bobbin case - the case wasn't sliding at all when she held it by the thread. Sorry about the spew warning. We don't have dealers here since Katrina and my SMs truly have come from some very strange places. Polly

Sandy, I've taken that bobbin case in and out so many times I'm sick of it. The thread has always been between the two hooks, but it does act like something isn't right there. I experiment with the tension screw and got it so that it will sew longer stretches before it starts the problem, but I still can't get it to sew consistently.

I talked with Polly and she gave me some other th>Carole, have you looked closely at your bobbin case? I found that one of

Edna, I've threaded and re-threaded over and over. I got it to where it would sew properly for about 4 inches instead of two, and then it would start snagging and looping on the underside again.

So, I'm go>Like you both said, it sounds like upper threading to me. Good luck,

Carole D. - Retired and loving it in the foothills of NW Georgia

My quilts, crafts, QIs, and more -

How I wish I could send Carole a dozen or so gators to take with her back to that Bernina dealer. THey should not have let that SM leave the store until they were sure it was prepped and Carole could at least thread it and straight stitch. My golly! Grrrrrrr. Polly

"Carole-Retired and Loving It" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Carole, I can relate to your frustration. Good luck with your new machine -- may it pay you back with years of joy for these hours of misery!

ep

"Carole-Retired and Loving It" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

On Nov 12, 8:02=A0pm, Carole-Retired and Loving It wrote:

Another thing to look at is how you load the bobbin into the bobbin case. Make sure that the thread is unwinding from the bobbin, from the left as you place it into the bobbin case. When you pull the thread after having loaded it, it should turn the bobbin in a clockwise direction, when looked at from the open side of the bobbin case. You also might have an adjustment problem with the little screw that controls the tension adjustment on the bobbin case, as it pertains to thread tension. I always have adjusted the tension on that screw to a different standard that the most talked about way of using the bobbin as a yo-yo sort of thing, and checking tension release that way. I do very small tension adjustments on the bobbin case screw until it provides "Just right" tension for the sewing I am doing. It involves taking the case out of the machine a few times, but it it is more accurate than the Yo-yo approach. Then again you could just have a defective bobbin case, or even timing issues, although that is not to likely, but could only be diagnosed by a trip to the dealer. I know you hate the thought of taking a heavy new machine back and forth, but you might just have to bite the bullet and take the drive. I also would buy an second bobbin case and keep it around for when you might be doing some sort of sewring work that requires a different tension from the "normal' sewing that you do. IE: Thread painting, or Embroidery. That way you can "screw around", so to speak, with only one bobbin case, and leave your "regular" bobbin case alone. Good Luck.

John

On Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:10:12 -0600, Carole-Retired and Loving It wrote (in article ):

Oh, I understand your frustration. I know you've rethreaded, but sometimes it is just so easy to overlook a little guide or spring or miss the tension disk. You think you are doing it right, but if you miss that one little spot, you get problems. Can you take the machine to the dealer and have her watch you thread the machine? She might spot you're problem right away

Maureen

Thanks, John. Yes, I checked and double checked the direction the thread was in the bobbin, played with the tension screw after first noting its original position....did ALL that stuff. Talked with Polly on the phone and tried her suggestions. All to no avail.

So now the whole thing is packed and ready to put in my car when I get back from Yoga. I'm taking it and my sewing sample to the store and they're not getting rid of me until they prove to me that it will work correctly. :) That was too much money to spend to have something that I can't even do a decent straight stitch on.

I will be very unhappy if I have to leave without the machine, since my old machine is already sitting in their service department. I wanted to be able to sew this weekend!

And yes, I had already decided that I need to buy another bobbin case for my "experimenting" with threads.

On Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:16:52 -0800 (PST), John

sorry to hear of your frustration. I am surprised they would let you leave the shop with out checking that machine worked and you could set it up. I am fortunate being in a small city I guess, with choices. I procrastinated for months before buying my new machine. very afraid of finding myself in a situation like yours as it is a lot of money. Peppered every stitcher in the "bring your own project" class and guild re their machines and service from the places they had bought them. I ended up buying a brother QC and love it. The woman who sold it to me has a good reputation for service and does a lot of repeat business. she did not try to oversell me and asked me a lot of questions as to what I was looking for in a sewing machine before even showing me any. actually only showed me the QC in the end. I suppose if I had not liked it she would have moved up or down the line. the thing I like the most is it is very user friendly, the instruction book is one of the best I have ever seen for anything. It came with the table attachment, every foot imaginable, an attachment for using large cone thread etc, I did not have to buy any extras. also it was on sale for 1,000 off. She sat me down to try it out etc. when mine came in she told me to take it home and play with it write down any questions and them come back and she would take me through it using the one in the shop. as it turned out I did not have any questions as it is so user friendly. After two weeks she checked up on me to see how it was going. LOL! so I went in and asked her a couple of question re programing in your own patterns etc. So if and when I am ever ready to move up to something more involved I will definitely being going back to her. I had been using an old Kenmore so was timid to move up to computerized sewing etc. But can't believe now I waited so lone. Ha! I really hope you get it sorted out. ruby

Carole-Retired and Loving It wrote:

On Nov 13, 9:02=A0am, Carole-Retired and Loving It wrote:

One other thing I neglected to mention, is that when you thread the top thread through the thread path over the top of the machine, make sure you have the pressure foot, in the Up position, and not down on the stitch plate. You have been sewing probably long enough to know all of the things that I and many others have suggested, but it is often easy enough to keep repeating the same mistake over and over again, especially when you are angry and frustrated with some new purchase. Don't ask me how I know this. It does sound as if it might be something that the vendor will have to deal with if you have diligently tried all of the above and still it does it. That is really a bummer, what with the excitement of getting a new machine. Hopefully they will be able to deal with it in short order while you wait. But, let's face it. Even though Bernina has a stellar reputation, they are, after all, just machines made by man, or woman, as the case may be. I had one of the brand new Bernina's I have bought over the last 5 years, have a problem that the store that sold me could not find or fix. I was forced to tear it apart myself, and it turned out that a simple circlip that holds a rod onto another rod, was off and laying on the bottom of the inside of the machine. Go figure. I put the clip back on and it has never missed a beat in all this time and it remains today my main machine. I had it back into the shop 3 times before I decided to tackle it myself, but boy were those frustrating weeks waiting for the diagnosis that never came. Hoping for the best.

John

Hi Carole,

You're absolutely right, and I parrot Polly's (pun intended) admonition that the machine should have been properly prepped before putting it in your hands. That said, this is hopefully one of those frustrations that you'll be able to laugh at in the not-too-distant future, and be delighted with the machine once the bugs are worked out. Considering the number of moving parts, the precision required to manufacture and assemble them, the technology to get them to do the things they do, I'm often surprised at how well they work and do what they do when they're operating correctly.

My point is, give them a chance to make things right without blowing your cool (not saying that you would - just sayin'...) My DW absolutely loves her Bernina, and though it's considered obsolete today, she wouldn't trade it in (she just said so) - it works beautifully all these years later. She had a few problems at first too, though I don't recall the specifics, and she was crushed that she wasn't able to bring it home and use it that weekend, but things worked out and she's a happy camper (with regard to the SM) today. Hang in there - this too shall pass.

Congrats & Best Wishes,

Doc

PROBLEM SOLVED!!!! :) I did have to take the machine down to the Sewing Center, and luckily the repairman was there and looked at it right away. He had to do some "surgery" on the bobbin case. The spring wasn't correctly seated and was about to fall out. Once he did that, he sat down and sewed some beautiful straight lines. Then he had me totally re-thread the machine to make sure I was doing it right (I was) and had me sew for a bit. It worked fine.

So now it's back home and set up again. I've started with another thread, another freshly wound bobbin, and it still works! I even played around with a lot of the decorative and specialty stitches, and the small alphabets. Total success.

Next step - adjusting to use Bottom Line thread in both top and bottom, as that is how I was already quilting the quilt-in-progress. I'm straight line stitching some of the motifs, so I'm going to try out the walking foot.

Step 2 - Experiment with free-motion with the BSR.

Step 3 - Open the box with the embroidery module and experiment with that.

These steps may take weeks or months! :)

Carole D. - Retired and loving it in the foothills of NW Georgia

My quilts, crafts, QIs, and more -

Carole, it sounds like you need a new bobbin case, though that's just a wild guess. I hope they can fix the machine for you while you wait. :S

Hurray, Carole! :D I'm so glad for you! You may want to join (if you haven't already) a Bernina Yahoo group at ; they're full of great information, especially if you're getting into embroidery. I'm pretty quiet there, since I don't have the embroidery module, but I still get quite a bit of useful information from them. :)