Home Ec was required when I was a freshman (9th grade) in high school(1958)in a little town in Texas. However, it was actually my mother who taught me HOW to sew. She had an old black and gold treadle Singer Sewing Machine that flipped up out of an oak table. The treadle and "legs" were made of loopy wrought iron. My first project was a brown linen skirt. The pattern had no waistband (shades of the future!), but it did have darts and a zipper. I didn't like the nasty old teacher and don't even remember if she showed us anything at all about using a machine. It was a very frustrating experience, but I finally got it all right (my mother didn't believe in doing my homework for me), and got an A. I do remember having an argument with some girls in my class who insisted that hemming required a double thread. The teacher (yes, the nasty old one) settled that in my favor. Everyone was so surprised, because I wasn't exactly the Home Ec type.

I don't know if my problem is tension-related or not: when I start to sew, the stop motion knob spins free and when I lift the presser foot & remove the fabric, I find several threads @ 3 inches long looped on the bottom of the fabric instead of just a single bobbin thread. The troubleshooting list at the back of my sewing machine book does not address this problem. Could you at least identify the problem for me? If possible, I would also appreciate an explanation of how to solve the problem.