Thread problems

I feel your pain! I'm trying to finish a quilt for a birthday tomorrow. I've made every mistake ever and even discovered a few new ones- empty bobbins, breaking threads, cutting wrong, using the wrong bobbin case, misaligning the edges, ironing fusible batting cuz I didn't ever buy any fusible batting (it had to have been mismarked or something???) But I sure smeared the melted fusible on the quilt. You name it!

The worst one was the invisible thread kept breaking while I quilted. I went thru everything you did, too, trying to figure out what was wrong. Finally, I was griping to Hoover that it was so cold in my sewing room that the thread was freezing and shattering. So, I got out the little space heater and turned it on to warm up the room and the invisible thread stopped breaking! Maybe it *was* the cold???

Next is a transfusion- I am about to bleed out from all the pin pricks and scratches! ;-)

Leslie & The Furbabies in MO.

I don't know that I've tried Madera but....depending on how the thread is wound onto the spool you may need to use a horizontal thread holder instead of a vertical one or vice versa. I know that it makes a big difference for some decorative threads that I use for embellishing.

Here's a link where it is explained more clearly:

Good luck! Allison

The last time I had a crazy-wound spool of thread battle, I took control of that rascal. I simply wound plenty of bobbins and used them up on top. The thread in question is a really beautiful gold metallic and I was going to add some gold quilting or die trying. That spool must have been wound on 'bring your children to work' day. Definitely defective winding but lovely thread. Polly

"Alice in PA" I'm making a quilt for my grandson for Christmas, and wanted to take the

I had l-o-n-g rows or seams or binding all pinned (straight pins) and every time I shifted the quilt around I got scratched and/or stabbed. I was too tired to organize myself better. I was on track for tomorrow's delivery until I couldn't find my special pens for writing the label. I finally used a Sharpie out of desperation. That's not a good pen for a label but it was that or go mad.

Photos tomorrow- if I can avoid any other catastrophes with that cursed quilt.

Leslie & The Furbabies in MO.

Another thing to try when having thread problems is to set the spool up as far from the machine as possible. I do this with ALL metallics and most of my rayons. I'm too cheap to invest in a weighted spool holder so I use a large coffee cup with a safety pin taped to the inside of the cup with the bottom of the pin (that little loop part) sticking up above the rim of the cup. I the put the cup on a shelf that is about

2 feet to the right and just about level with the top of the machine. Put the spool of thread in the cup and thread the loose end through the little loop of the straight pin -- this is your thread guide. Then drag the thread over to your machine and thread in the normal manner. Having the spool this far away from the machine allows it to sort of unwind, loosen up and get all the kinks out and works great for stuff that should be on a horizontal spool pin. I FMd my 80" square Christmas Cat Quilt with gold, silver & green metallic thread and never had a problem so this really works! Actually, I learned this trick here about 4 years ago so I'm surprised some> I'm making a quilt for my grandson for Christmas, and wanted to take the

Thanks for the great tip! I hope there won't be a "next time" for thread problems, but if there is, I'll be ready!