So I'm quilting along and suddenly notice that I'm having some serious skipped stitch issues. Oh bother. I change the needle, check everything, oil parts, change the needle again and nothing seems to be helping.
I finally check the stitching on a test piece of fabric, and it works fine. I am going through large seams some of the time, but it was skipping other places too. Anyway, I change the brand of thread (from Aurifil to Gutermann, in case you're interested) and everything cleared up right away. (And it is way past my bedtime. But it feels so nice to have the problem worked out.)
What do I do with the Aurifil thread now? It worked on the random fabric, so it might have just been having issues with this quilt. Save it for further quilting with a warning note? Use it for piecing? Trash it?
I've had this problem before. Mineral oil(baby oil) more often than not helps. Here's a link if your interested.
ReplyDeletehttp://westmichquilter.blogspot.com/2011/05/tips-from-sharon-schamber.html
I use just a few drops and if that doesn't work I dip the entire cone. Most of the time 3 or 4 drops on the spool and one drop on the bobbin thread before quilting works fine. Word of warning, make test stitches off to the side of the quilt. If your machine is dirty the oil on the thread will clean it for you, causing black residue on thread. If possible let the oil soak into the thread for a few minutes. There's also a product called Sewer's Aid (oil) that works great but cost more. The first time I put the baby oil on my thread I thought it had ruined the thread(discoloring), so I set it aside and didn't use it. A few hours later the oil had soaked in and the discoloration was gone. I proceeded with caution, testing on a scrap piece, it worked great.