Quilting with the Juki 2010

I've been quilting a lot on my Juki lately - for some reason, I'm still feeling hesitant to write the quilting review about it. Probably because I'm not entirely happy with it.

Really, truthfully, I'm having troubles with the machine liking the thread that I use, but I'm rather unwilling to let go of that thread. I use exclusively use Sulky for quilting, but I've been having a lot of breakage issues. I think I've gotten most of them worked out:

- use a needle with a larger hole (metallic 90/14 needles)

- be sure that the hook of the thread stand is sitting exactly centered over the spool

- lace the thread through an extra hole in the thread feeder

- be sure to move the needle quickly (I tend to move the fabric faster than the needle, causing breakage)

But still. I'm still getting occasional thread shread/breakage. I'm also having some troubles with consistency of tension in the settings. I once quilted an entire quilt where the tension was off - if I increased it by one click, it was too tight (on top), and if I decreased it by one click, it was too loose. Really? REALLY?!? I don't even know what to do about that!! (Perhaps a batting issue on that one?)

I've definitely come leaps and strides in using this machine for quilting, so I'm sincerely hoping that it's just a few remaining tweaks in figuring out how to set the tension to get everything just right.

To be honest, the majority of the quilting looks fantastic. I'm just so over re-threading my needle.