Why Does My Top Thread Keep Breaking? | Sewing Machine

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Hi, I'm Jennifer from Workroom Social and today we are going to talk about why does my top thread keep breaking? I don't know if you've ever experienced this, I know I have. You'll be sewing and all of a sudden your top thread will just break right in the middle of a seam. Super annoying! So I'm going to talk to you today about some ways to troubleshoot those problems.

The first thing you should do is just to re-thread your machine. Just take everything out. Go ahead and pull on your thread, make sure everything's moving smoothly up there. You can cut the tail off and just start from scratch. That's going to be the easiest way to troubleshoot this because sometimes things just get a little bit funny. Okay, so I'm re-threaded and now, hopefully, I will be sewing easily without any problems.

But if you're still having problems, there are a couple of things to check on. First is your tension. Sometimes if your tension is too high, if this were up, I don't know, maybe I accidentally had it all the way at nine, your thread can get stuck and it can tear. So that's one reason why your thread might be ripping.

Other things to look for are obstacles. Is your thread getting caught on something? Perhaps up here maybe my thread accidentally got twisted around here, this tension disk, which is used for winding our bobbins, and so that's putting a lot of stress on the thread and as it's going through the machine, it just rips. So check for any obstacles that might be affecting your stitches.

The last thing that you should check is the spool itself. Sometimes on home machines, the spool of thread itself can be too heavy, too big, and it kind of gets stuck spinning around the spindle here, and so that can put a lot of tension on the thread and cause it to rip. If the spool is just a normal spool, it's not a giant spool, you might want to take the spool off and double check this bottom area here and make sure that there's nothing that's holding the spool taut while it's turning. Maybe over time you're getting a lot of adhesive buildup from the bottom of your spools on your sewing machine and that's causing it to not move smoothly.

So that's just a couple of things that you can do to troubleshoot, to try and figure out why your top thread keeps breaking.

[AthenaAtonement]

"I don't know if you've ever experienced your upper thread breaking... but..." GURL, you think I'm here for fun? >_>

[amcdouall]

None of those things were wrong, I'm going insane trying to sew a stitch, top thread breaks after about 5 seconds every time.

[jojozepofthejungle]

constant thread breaking makes me more on the violent side of "a bit funny" lol

[buckmajor]

Hi Jennifer, someone here resolved my top thread braking issue despite every method I tried from your video. I didn't know every time you use a new needle the curve side needs to face towards me (sewist). Perhaps you should include it as well since most of us are not expert sewist like myself. Happy to finally get some sewing done. Woohoo, up the buccaneers!!

[pdfevxi]

I would also like to let you all know to check your thread and fabric compatibility. Depending on the fabric type, stretch and thickness you're going to need some durable and strong thread like 100% polyester thread. I was using cotton thread or a super soft and thick plush fabric and it kept breaking my top thread when sewing especially when I would increase the speed of sewing. I switched to 100% polyester thread for that project and no more top thread breaks! The details matter! So if you've exhausted all possible errors, check to see if your thread is even compatible with the fabric you're using. Your quality and kind of thread can truly make or break your project (literally lol)

[DonnaMSchmid]

I'm surprised that she didn't mention changing out your needle...  Sometimes needles can develop nearly-microscopic burrs along the shaft or eye, which ends up shredding the thread as it passed by it.  If you've tried everything else listed here, try changing to a new needle!

[Withlovekailey]

I keep re threading mine and it keeps breaking, I can’t sew for a whole minute without it breaking

[Tappit]

I just found out why my upper thread was breaking, I had the upper thread under the foot and pulled away with the lower thread instead of from the needle OVER the foot, it was being chewed up by the teeth of the needle plate. I found this out after taking a break to make some tea, my wife would have told me this before, but she wanted a cup of tea also, if in doubt, make a cup of tea then everything will be fine :-)

[beautifuldreamer]

7 years later and this video is still helpful and useful. Thank you.

[PP]

The three biggest thread breaking issues I had occurred because:

1) The tension was too low; therefore, the thread got caught under the needle while sewing and was cut in half (worse with cheap thread)
2) The thread was too cheap. It just didn't have the strength to run at higher speeds and any slight catch would break it
3) As said here, the tension was too high and the thread (cheap again) just broke.

All issues solved now by getting good quality, stronger thread and having a quick play with the tension (mid-tension was usually always fine)

[JoJo-fan-right-here]

Tried all of these even before watching this. Comments are saying change the needle though!

The only helpful part of this video were the comments 😊

[maryannrussum]

I might add one more thing to check as to why your thread might be breaking. I have older thread that I didn't realize was the problem until I changed it to a new spool and now it's stopped breaking.

[anubhayadav]

Hi, I came to know from a different video that I was using a bad quality thread and I changed the whole spool with a better quality thread and it worked

[Peppermint]

A less known cause: the needle bends slightly and hits the tip of the shuttle hook. The hook tip then bends slightly and keeps breaking the thread. Fix : use a thin nose pliers to gently straighten the hook tip. Make sure the needle is straight or replace it. And always let the fabric material be moved by the presser foot, don't block or rush it by hand

[Caerphlly]

3 hours of frustration and I stupidly should have read the comments first. My needle was in backwards! Why is this not mentioned anywhere!?

[tanyacapson]

Thank you so much! My tension was on 9!!!! 

[rattylol]

Mone was the machine tension (not the thread tension barrel with discs but the other tension wheel on top) it was on 7 and I changed it to 5, sewed fine until then my needle snapped, probably due to being bent under the tension. All okay now, thanks

[ilovefredreika]

Also the direction you thread the needle matters. Mine kept breaking until I threaded it in the opposite direction. Little details are important.

[Brookesobasic]

My huge issue is the bobbin area jamming up and ripping the thread up. I've cleaned my machine and don't know what to do after this.

[Joel-is-cool]

Or, in my case, your needle could be in backwards