Question Thursday #30

LeahDay

Leah Day has been teaching online since 2009. She's the creator of the Free Motion Quilting Project, a blog filled with thousands of quilting tutorial videos. Leah has written several books including 365 Free Motion Quilting Designs, Explore Walking Foot Quilting with Leah Day, and Mally the Maker and the Queen in the Quilt.

8 Responses

  1. shilsenbeck says:

    I wonder sometimes if the direction that the thread comes off the spool makes a difference? For example, on a cone of cross-wound thread, the thread comes off the top and it is pretty obvious which is the top with a cone, so this is hard to do wrong. With smaller crosswound spools, the thread should still come off the end, but I imagine that one could get the top and bottom swapped — does it matter? If you draw from the 'bottom' does it put kinks in, or untwist the ply?

    For stacked-wound, the situation seems even more confusing. First, I'll heard that the thread should come straight off the side of the spool (not the top), which requires that the spool rotate freely. Does it matter which side is 'up'? Does it really matter if the spools 'unwinds'? If you pull off the end, is it better to come off the 'top' or the 'bottom' to avoid excessive kinks (tightening the twist) or untwisting? Thanks and my apologies if this a better question for one of the thread manufacturers.

  2. Thanks that was what I needed to hear. I just "unquilted" a border and walked away from another quilt that wasn't working right either. took the day off from sewing, read a book instead. some times we just need to walk away!

  3. @Shilsenbeck, I learned something about this when I first began quilting a few months ago. I use a couple of different types of cross wound thread and YES it is important to make sure your thread spool is set up correctly. One brand I have has the top and bottom marked so I know which way is up and the other brand that I use doesn't. The difference is immediately apparent if I have my spool upside down, my tension is just slightly off so the stitches are alright but every few inches I will get a series of loose stitches or if I am FMQ'ing I get a lot more nesting, loose stitches and thread breakage.
    In the case of stacked wound the thread does work a whole lot better if it comes off the side and moves freely, I used to have a machine that only had a horizontal pin for thread, the stacked bobbins never worked well for me and at that time I had no clue why. It is the reason I switched to cross wound threads.
    Ironically all my machines now only have the vertical spool pins and I still use the cross wound threads and do not have any problem UNLESS they are upside down. Hope that helps.

  4. Janet O. says:

    This may have nothing to do with it, but when I bought my midarm machine the dealer told me that the darker the thread, the more issues it can give you–especially black. I don't remember all he said about it, but it obviously has something to do with the dyes.

  5. Anonymous says:

    Thank you so much for the pictures of the back of your quilts! I am still having tension issues with the machine I am using, but yours look like they could be stand alone artwork.

    I'll be sure to post about the results when I get to try Paisley. 🙂

  6. When I got my Janome P-QC, I remember the dealer saying that this machine prefers thread that is wound in a certain direction. To my chagrin, I can't remember which direction he said, but we checked the Isacord, and it was the right way. I don't mean the way it's wound on the spool, but the direction the thread fibers are wound.I also am wondering if humidity has anything to do with it. We have had such a dry spell for months. Now all of a sudden, we have all of this humidity. Maybe it's making our machines go wacko!

  7. JE Martin says:

    Wouldn't the type of thread be part of the issue? As well as lint & other maintenance issues. I've just moved & I think, after checking all the usual suspects, I need a maintenance visit. The Baby Lock sews okay, there's just a little noise, a bit of grrr. This machine isn't supposed to be oiled, which I'd do to my Bernina.

  8. Leah Day says:

    Hi Shilsenbeck – Really it's process of elimination to see which way your spool feeds better. In this situation my spool was acting funny. I switched spools and suddenly the problem stopped. Hard to say what the problem is exactly, but at least it was easy to fix.

    Hi JE – Because I had just been stitching Isacord thread in another color, I know it wasn't the thread TYPE that was the culprit for this particular situation, though yes, that is a good place to check if you're getting an obnoxious problem. First try just another spool of the same type of thread (ex: different color), then try a spool of something entirely different.

    Yes, if your machine is making even a subtle grumbly noise, it might be time for a check up with your repairman. It's good to have things cleaned and oiled at least once a year.

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