On the saga of learning my new embroidery machine – I have noticed that this baby is a bit more particular about just how things are done. My latest discovery is how perfect the bobbin must be.

I was embroidering some cute free-standing lace for a donation project last night. It was going just great – beautiful stitching, smooth as silk when done. On the last half of the project, though, my bobbin ran out of thread. No problem, I’ve been doing this for years (says I), I can just pop a new one in, and proceed. 

A week or so ago, I purchased pre-wound bobbins from two places, both online. I put the new bobbin in from the first box I picked up…but it just wasn’t stitching right. I had to abandon the project, luckily only damaging one part of the stitchout. I thought I’d just do a couple of quick things and continue the lace the next day. But no matter what I did, it seemed, the bobbin just wasn’t catching the top thread properly. Well, phooey, I decided to wait until the next day to try again.

YouTube is a great resource for these things. After looking at a video of how to properly load the bobbin into the bobbin case, and then the bobbin into the machine, I double checked to make sure the bobbin area was free of debris…with canned air. I oiled it just in case (again), and still – the bobbin wouldn’t work.

Then I remembered reading somewhere on Facebook….maybe it was the bobbin itself! Sure enough, I took a bobbin out of the OTHER box, put it in, and Voila! The bobbin from the other box works great. The machine is humming along quite nicely.

Lesson learned…even though I’ve been sewing since I was maybe 12 years old (like over 50 years), I still have things to learn – even about the basics!