Lady Diana

First, don't mess with the tension. Sew a sandwich with a straight stitch. Tension OK? THEN DON'T CHANGE YOUR TENSION, IT IS FINE. Eyelashes are formed when your hands are moving too fast for your machine to catch up with that motion. You can either slow your hand movement or speed up your machine. The Blue dot bobbin works great. I have two 6600's one for home, one for cabin. Love this machine.

Karamarie

I have the same machine - the Janome 6600 - and I do FMQ all the time on it. Tensions differ on all machines but I increase it to 6 for FMQing and I also put a bobbin Genie in the bobbin case. Hope it starts working better for you.

Fabric Galore

I also have a Janome 6600 and I had the same problem. I took it to my LQS where I had bought it and she used a piece of dental floss to clean out the thread tension spring and then rethreaded the sewing machine. It now works like a dream. You might want to try that before you spend any money.

sassysews2

I have the same machine, are you sure you raised the foot when you threaded the machine, this releases the tension and allows the thread to seat in the tension disc's. Then when you lower the foot the tension is set. It looks like this is what is happening. Set your pressure & stitch length to 0, your speed to medium, make sure the thread is seated in the tension disc, slow down on your curves, buy the blue bobbin case and you should be good to go. Have quilted many fm quilts on my Janome and it does beautifully. Good luck

citruscountyquilter

I heard a tip recently when it comes to things like this and it was TNT. Many immediately think they have a tension issue when that is rarely the case. First check THREAD. Is your machine threaded correctly and are you using the same kind of thread you used when you weren't having any problems.

NEEDLE - is your needle dull, bent, inserted correctly. Are you using the right kind of needle for the material and the thread. In your case are you using the same kind of needle you used when you had success? I had a very frustrating time with one project with skipped stitches and such. It turned out to be the needle was not compatible with the blue batik that I was using. When I changed to a sharp needle from a universal needle the problem went away.

TENSION - if all else fails it could be the tension. I never have to change the tension on my Janome 8900. The only time I have is when I was doing gathering for a project and my instruction book that came with the machine told me to change the top tension to a certain point for that stitch.

Speed is a big factor in FMQ and stitch quality especially when going around curves.

Hope these tips help.

CaroleLee

I have a similar machine and unless I use Aurifil thread for F M it is a mess. The machine uses any thread otherwise.

fallonquilter

It's a manufacturing error. After many times taking mine in for repair, they finally called the main manufacturer and found that it was a glitch in this model.(6600) The newer Jamones the error was fixed.
What you need to do is when you are done machine quilting for the day, set the feed dogs back up in regular position BEFORE turning off your machine. Never turn it off with feed dogs down!!!
That was the problem. I've never had a problem since. Hope this will work for you too!!.

quiltmaker52

I also crank my tension to between 8 and 9. I put my feed dogs down and I use my foot pedal with the speed bar all the way to the right . I can't get the hang of using the start/stop button and I have never used the blue dot bobbin. Don't try to push the quilt too fast or jerky . That's when I have problems. I've found wearing gardening gloves helps with that

JoyjoyMarie

I have to put in my two bits here. I have a 6600 too which I love. Most of your comments are what has worked for me, but when I was having big eyelash problems, what I found was that I was inadvertently using my pressure foot knee lift when I went around corners, which lifted the pressure foot, and goofed up the tension. Now I FMQ without the knee lift, so that this mistake doesn't happen. (I have one quilt on my couch that I love, but was too lazy to take out when this happened

pocoellie

From the looks of the second picture, are you sure the presser foot was down?