Monofilament thread is breaking

I'm a novice quilter and am making a T-shirt quilt.

I'm using a Janome 344 sewing maching and Sulky 100% polyester thread. The clear thread keeps breaking. I've re-threaded the machine, adjusted tension, adjusted stitch length.

Help?

Reply

I'm not sure if I'm reading your question correctly (I'll blame that on not enough coffee :D)...

If you're trying to piece your quilt with monofilament thread, I suggest that you switch to cotton thread. The monofilament isn't strong enough to hold the patches of a quilt together. A 50 wt cotton like Aurifil or Masterpiece would be a better choice.

If you're quilting (the stitches that hold the layers together) the Sulky clear thread will be fine, though I would use the 50 wt 100% cotton in the bobbin. The added advantage of the cotton is that it's easy to see if your tension is unbalanced...you'll be able to see the 'dots' of cotton thread on your quilt top.

Usually with monofilament, significant reductions in the tension settings are necessary. Clear thread has stretch to it. This stretch causes tension as the strand is pulled through the sewing machine.

To offset the stretch, reduce the tension setting. I find that I need to reduce by 2 whole numbers just to start testing the quality of my stitches. Sometimes, the setting needs to be reduced even more.

I believe that Sulky is straight wound onto the spools. It works best if the spool is on a vertical spool pin so that the thread unwinds off it from the side.

If that doesn't help, then I suggest switching to a Universal needle and then possibly a ballpoint needle. The knit of the T-shirts may be affecting the stitch quality. Either of these two needles will pierce the knit fabric better because of the shape of the point.

Readers, your suggestions are welcome. How have you tamed your monofilament thread? Do share your experiences below with the 'comments' link.

Thank you!

Piecefully,

Julie Baird
Editor

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