BellaOnline Forums Hobbies and Crafts Quilting HELP! The thread keeps piling under

I am working on a big project with a lot of paper piecing. I start sewing a line and three or four stitches into it I hear a pop noise, and at the end of the line I turn the thing over and see that the thread has bunched up under the beginning part. After awhile I realized the needle was pushing the top 'needle' thread down through the fabric and stiching it in a pile to the bottom side. Why is it doing that? I changed the needle and changed the bobbin - rewound it in case it was a tension issue. What can I do to make this stop, it is creating problems with my project lying flat.

There are two tensions involved on a sewing machine - the top tension and the bobbin tension. One or the other on your machine is "cattywhompus". Make sure before you do the stitching on the real project you do some practice stitches on fabric that doesn't matter what it looks like on either side. Be sure to consult you sewing machine's owner's manual - or the company's website for more information. Good luck!

I have that problem from time to time. Sometimes it's enough to rethread the machine - even if it looks like it's threaded correctly. If that doesn't work, I clean out the fuzz and gunk that collects in the bobbin well. If neither of those things works ... I take a nap.

Great Advice! If nothing else works, always take a nap. If the world took more naps, there would be fewer wars. I am a firm believer in naps, and I always set aside part of my Saturday and Sunday afternoons for naps. Seriously though, I think she's right on target about rethreading the machine and cleaning out the fuzz. There's probably 101 tricks to making the problem go away, and you just have to go through them one by one until the problem is solved.