Let me tell you a secret – It’s ok to throw the trouble thread out. 
I was working on the long arm Quilting Machine on Wednesday. I had a t-shirt quilt loaded and was hopping to get the quilting completed that night. I had a black King Tut spool loaded. King Tut normally works perfectly on the machine but Wednesday was different. The thread broke repeatedly…so frustrating. Sometimes my machine gets into this mindset that it doesn’t want to sew in a particular direction and if the thread will break it is in that motion…but that night was different, not matter which way I went the thread would go. I could get 2-6″ of quilting in and I would have to stop and rethread.
This quilt was too big to trouble with this the whole time.
So I pray.
And think…there has to be a cause. If your thread breaks it can be
- a burr on the needle
- the bobbin case
- lint build up
- weak thread
- many causes.
I started with the needle. I got that swapped out, time the machine and we were going again…for 2″. BIG SIGH! I started thinking…you know, I think I have had issues with this spool before…I wonder what happens if I put different thread on? So I had another black, similar weight and installed that spool. We were soon quilting like a dream and the t-shirt quilt was off the machine and trimmed ready to be bound that night.
Back to the Quick Tip – if you have a trouble causing spool of thread – throw it away. Sometimes there are bad spools of thread or weak spots in the thread. Don’t think about the money lost, don’t think about how it might be able to be used somewhere else or that you are wasting something. Save yourself the headache of fighting yucky thread and send it to the dump.