I made the mini table topper using the dresden template for charm squares. This was to be a hostess gift to my neighbor, who invited me to her home for a pre-holiday dinner. Last night I went to quilt the durn thing. First, the machine acted wonky with Bottom Line in the bobbin (60 wt) and MasterPiece in the top (50 wt cotton). So I switched to MasterPiece in the bobbin as well. I was using the serpentine "quilt around the ditch", which has been successful for me in the past. I really don't know what is causing the problems. Sometimes the top thread would just break after about 3 stitches. At other times, the material would just not go through, making me think that the feed dogs were not working properly. I was using the walking foot. I rethreaded, put in a new bobbin, changed the needle, turned the machine off and on. All to no avail! I have a crappy looking serpentine stitch. I will keep this for myself, but I am now afraid to try to make another. The only morale I can get from this is not to try to do anything quickly. (Although I really did have enough time to do this - if these problems had not occurred!) I thought this was going to be an easy peasy project, but that is not how it turned out.

I am hoping that the problem is not the Connecting Thread MasterPiece thread. But that is the one thing that is different from my other quilting.