Trouble in River City!

Yes, we got trouble right here in River City Menomonie!  Do you remember The Music Man? It was one of my favorite musicals and since I haven't seen it for many years, I think I'll check if it's on Netflix and if so, I'll watch it again.

I began the FMQ on my log cabin quilt and once again, there's trouble!  With the bobbin! And the top thread!  It's the darn tension between the two!  No matter what I do, I can't get the tension right and since I'm using blue thread on the bottom and white thread on the top, that means TROUBLE!

Above is the sample I made to take with when I bring the machine to the shop next week so the repair guy can see for himself.  You can see in the first picture the problem I have with the freemotion quilting, both straight line and curves. The second picture is a couple lines of stitching with the feed dogs up and using the regular presser foot. And stitching on only 2 layers of fabric--no batting.  Still lots of blue bobbin thread showing through.

If any of you have ideas on how I can fix this problem, PLEASE let me know. I'm willing to try anything! I've changed the needle and rethreaded the machine to no avail, and I've tried 6 different tension settings without success.  Can you tell how frustrated I feel!

Later today, I'll switch the thread and bobbin to my trusty work horse machine, Lily, and see if I can get some quilting done on her.  She's a little smaller than my new machine so I'm not sure if I can push a king sized quilt through (down?) her throat, but I've done it before so keep your fingers crossed that I can do it again.

Last night I continued stitching on Among the Pines and nearly finished the stone fireplace in the block I'm working on right now.  I also was able to wash out the "Sticky Solvi" product which is a different brand than Sulky's. I don't have the package with the directions so I wasn't sure if I needed to do anything special. I just left it to soak in tepid water, embroidery side down, for about half an hour. When I came back to it, all the sticky stuff was gone!  A miracle!  All I had to do was rinse it and blot it a little.  I don't know if I'll use this product on a regular basis, but it sure is working fine for these tiny little drawings.

I had my OT session this morning and I think it'll probably be my last one.  After 10 sessions, I'm not feeling any improvement in my thumb/wrist so the next step is to pay a visit to the orthopedic hand specialist.  Ugh!  I've been to him in the past for other hand related problems such as carpal tunnel and, I must say, that he's never pushed me to have surgery as I've heard was common among ortho docs.  I think hope he'll go the injection route instead of wielding the knife.  We'll see. I just want some relief from this problem, and it would be nice to have it fixed before we head South for our winter stay on the Gulf of Mexico.

Well, wish me luck with my quilting today--I really need it!  And please, send me your suggestions. I need them too!