Tension Troubles? Let me Teach You The Secret Handshake!

March 23, 2009

Wow! I can't believe how quickly Spring has arrived. I hope that you are finding inspiration in Mother Earth's annual renewal, and are appreciating the beauty of nature in your life. The last time we chatted, snow was flying in Iowa, and now the temperatures are consistently in the 60's, so people are baring white legs and toes. Yikes!

This month I've received several calls regarding thread and tension issues. Imagine that. It's time to teach you the "secret handshake for tension."

I'll try my best to once again help you slay the tension beast. You can do it, really. You'll just need a trusty flat blade screwdriver, an assortment of needles, and courage. The courage part is the most important ingredient, because you have to be fearless, and fight what you might have been told is "correct" and replace it with "whatever works"!

Imagine that your top thread and bobbin thread are in a tug of war. Ideally each team would have equal force, resulting in a stalemate where the thread stays nicely nestled between the quilt layers. If the bobbin thread is pulling the top thread to the back of the quilt, its "team" has more pulling power, and you get the proverbial "railroad tracks". Tighten up the top tension to give it more muscle, OR loosen the bobbin tension and remove some of its strength. Sometimes you will have to do both.

Too often quilters are afraid to mess with the bobbin tension. This is the "courage" part again! It is OKAY and many times necessary to adjust bobbin case tension. Don't worry about some magic number or "drop test". Those numbers are only guides, not absolutes. If you were told that the bobbin should only drop 5-6 inches when you hold the thread tail, that's really only a starting point. Be brave, go for broke, and make any adjustment to the top tension or bobbin tension that gives you a nice stitch…even if it defies logic!

• Quilt tautness (if it's too tight, you compress the batting layer and increase needle flex)
• Thread composition (heavier thread or cotton thread pulls harder on the needle, and doesn't penetrate the quilt's layers as easily, especially if the batting is also dense)
• Batting (thin batting such as Quilter's Dream Request, dense batting like Warm and Natural, or poorly bonded batting can make balanced tension difficult)
• Needle size (the thicker the thread, the larger the needle needs to be. King Tut will almost always quilt better using a 4.5 needle, for example)
• Thread Path (some threads do better without "wrapping" around the three-hole thread guide, especially threads like King Tut and YLI variegated thread--see photo below.)
• Quilting direction (Even though you can move your quilting machine 360 degrees across your quilt, the needle and hook must meet at just the right time for a perfect stitch to form. Your needle will always flex in the opposite direction you move.)

When you move the machine around the circle, as the needle passes from 6:00 to 9:00, the needle and hook meet too soon, plus the needle pulls away from the hook slightly, creating tension changes.

If the thread is thicker, it increases this tendency because it pulls on the needle even harder. Now you've learned another secret...the needle flexing causes tension issues, what can you do?

A. Go up a needle size

B. Slow down (especially moving from "6:00 to 9:00" on the freehand side of the machine, or "12:00 to 3:00" on the pantograph side of the machine)

C. Increase your stitch length (if the machine is only taking 8-9 stitches per inch, the needle stays in the fabric longer between stitches, increasing flex)

D. Change the thread path through the three-hole thread guide. Instead of "wrapping" the thread around the guide, try "weaving" it as if you are doing a basting stitch.

 

 

E. Place a piece of cotton batting inside the first thread guide

 

F. All of the above.

So, if you know that these things affect tension in addition to the actual tension dial settings, you can analyze your particular problem and make changes. Here are a few examples of what to consider:

My top thread is always breaking.

1. Check the thread path. Is the thread caught or trapped anywhere?
2. Try a different spool of the same thread to eliminate bad thread as the trouble.
3. Put on a practice piece on the side of your quilt. Loosen the top tension until the top thread no longer breaks (this could be several revolutions of the knob.)
4. Look at the back now. Do you see the top thread looping on the back? If you do, then ALSO loosen the bobbin case tension (start with 1/4 turns).
5. Now slowly start tightening the top tension until you've given it enough power to pull the bobbin thread into the quilt. If it breaks before you get that job accomplished, loosen the bobbin tension even more (even if it means your bobbin case will zing to the floor.)

I'm getting railroad tracks and loopies on the back of the quilt.

1. Tighten the top tension until the loopies disappear.
2. If the top thread breaks while trying to do this, also loosen the bobbin tension.
3. Check steps "A through F" above.

My tension is inconsistent across the quilt.

1. Tighten the top tension.
2. Add a piece of batting to the first thread guide above the spool, so that the thread has consistent pressure all the way through the thread path (see photo above; this eliminates the whiplash and sporadic feed of some slippery threads or threads that tend to "stick" to the spool like cotton.)
3. Concentrate on moving at the same pace.
4. Increase your needle size.

I could go on about tension all day, but you'd be tired of all the "if this, then this..." statements in half an hour. Just know that when you work on a quilt, each one possesses unique characteristics that will make it slightly different from the previous quilt. It could be something as simple as the humidity in the air that changes, or the fact that you got up on the wrong side of the bed. My point is to relax, and if you're frustrated, walk away for a little while and come back with fresh eyes.

Use logic and common sense to work through your tension troubles. One student recently told me that there must be a "secret handshake" that she wasn't taught when she bought her machine, because she was struggling so much with tension. After learning about the other factors that can affect it, and how the tug of war and needle flex works, she felt like she was finally a "member of the longarm quilting club." Well, I hope you accept the invitation to join, too! Any time you have troubles that you can't resolve, just call us...that's what customer services is all about at APQS. After all, today you learned the "secret handshake"!