Uh Oh, Operator Error -- The Longarm Thread Incident

 I was happy to be in the longarm room yesterday.  My Winter Blues baby quilt (in pink) was loaded flat and playing nicely.  I had a list of fabric scraps to pull for another project WIP.  I removed the bobbin case and the thread from the needle and wrapped it around the handle on the longarm.  I turned off the stitch regulator and locked the head in place.  It hit the start button and let "24" warm up.

All of a sudden I heard it making a different sound.  My husband works on equipment a lot and I am very in tune to different sounds.  It sounded like it was going through a bunch of seams or a thick fabric.  I turned and looked at it and it was sucking up thread in the spool.  It was building on the spindle enough to make it run slower!  Oh dear.  I quickly shut it off.

I'm glad I caught it while it was still in one piece.  There was this much on the tail end that I could pull out.  I snipped it from the spool.

I worked for over an hour to unwind it by turning the aluminum knob.  I have two blisters to prove it.

You can see some of the tread is darker.  That's a good sign that I am oiling it properly inside and the wicks are working.  I'm trying to make a positive thing out of this.  It ALL came out in one piece.  Woohoo!  I am so glad I didn't have to take the whole head apart.  I have learned that next time I better wrap the end that I unthread from the needle and secure it so that this doesn't happen again.