A new addiction - Free Motion Embroidery

Good evening,
I thought I'd drop by and show you all what I've been up to today.  I've been hankering to try Free Motion Embroidery.  My husband bought me a free-motion foot for Christmas and then I was promptly too ill to try it, then too busy!  Today I made the time and wow!  It's brilliant!  I was literally so excited earlier today I was bouncing around.  Before I came crashing down to earth, but we haven't got to that part of the story yet.

I used a brilliant book to help me with this technique Free and Easy Stitch Style by Poppy Treffry.  Does this count as part of my Craft Book Challenge? I didn't make one of the projects, but I followed her steps for learning the technique. 

I started with a bit of scrap fabric, just moving around with the foot:

Fun!  I then did as she suggested and cut a load of squares from an old flat sheet that had been drawn on...  I hooped up and got going.  I haven't cut any of the floating threads here, but I think you can make out a heart, a flower and an attempt at a butterfly.

I then started to work on individual motifs, outlining them twice.  The hearts are a little odd at the bottom, it took me a while to realise it was better to stop the machine then move up again to get a crisp angle rather than an arc.

More motifs.  Erm, that one to the top right of the flowers is a coffee cup and the one to the left of the hoop is supposed to be a bird!  I did find the hoop kept getting in the way of the little screw that holds the needle in ~(my excuse, sticking to it!).

The next step was to find a picture and copy it.  Oh how I laughed!  AS IF!  I can't draw at all and thought I'd never manage this....

But I did!

I have various things stuck around my craft room and on the shelf was a fairy I'd stamped and embossed for my Christmas cards a few years ago.  This one was a leftover.  I decided to draw her.  Wow!  I was SO impressed.  The photo of the stamped image didn't come out so well as it's actually in colour with black and gold embossing.  I haven't done the fairy's face, but I don't think it's a bad effort.  Even my husband was impressed.  (I don't need to tell you the stitched version is the top one, do I?!?)

Next up was shading.  That was tricky and I'm not convinced I've mastered it.  We were supposed to be experimenting with thread colours, but I just used a cheap black thread I had and a full bobbin.  At this point I changed to a bobbin which was wound with purple thread.  I don't like the way it looks.  I'll definitely have to experiment with colours later, but I was more interested in learning the technique at this stage.

This was followed by applique shapes.  I felt like I'd taken a step backwards, I could do a square a minute ago so why couldn't I do it now??

Practice, practice, practice... and some motifs in the squares...

And on to motifs!  Flowers, hearts and a cupcake.  Again, we were supposed to experiment with fabrics, but I just grabbed what I had from my scrap bag and wasn't even careful about my cutting out which is why the cake is odd.  I just wanted to master the sewing, I can manage the cutting and fabric choosing.  I also tried a bit of writing.  At this stage I had white thread and yellow in the bobbin so you can hardly see it (and Blogger refuses to turn the photo round!), but it says Cupcake and Flower on the piece to the right.  I was pleased with it!

So,enough with the practicing, let's get going!  You must have realised by now I'm a bit impatient!  I chose some lovely Moda fabrics, cut out a flower and two leaves by tracing the patterned fabric, Bondawebbed them down and sewed.  I could not be happier with the result.

 I decided to make another four of these and make them into little lavendar bags.  And this is where it all came crashing down.  At this stage, I had not touched the tension, the machine was threaded correctly, NOTHING was different from last time.  So why were the bobbin threads forming loops on the top?  I tried rethreading, cleaning out the bobbin case, altering the tension.  Nope, can't do it.

After a frustrating half hour, I gave up.  I desperately want to continue learning this technique, but this is a stumbling block I can't seem to get over.  Can anyone out there help me at all?  Or direct me to someone that can?  Honestly, I'm gutted.  I had dreams of 4 finished Christmas presents by this time.

edit: I'm not sure I made it clear about my difficulties.  I used the same thread, bobbin thread, material etc with the one above that kept messing up as I had used with the successful one - that's why I'm so stumped!  Literally nothing had changed.