AndreaHarper
My advice, given that I have not owned a Brother in years, and do not plan to ever own one again, is to take it into a shop and get the basic maintenance done. Tell them specifically what's going on, and they'll fix it. Messing around with your machine when you don't know exactly what you're doing is a sure recipe for a hefty repair bill.
i did and it costs $100 for them to fix anything wrong with it. i just gave up with the hunk of crap and got a new machine. i will never buy a brother product again.
Lychee Fruit
Be sure to experiment with tension and try putting a fresh needle in place of the old one. It wouldn't hurt to take a can of air to it, just to make sure any loose bits of thread aren't stuck where they don't belong.
yeah, that was the first thing i tried was messing with the tension, cleaning the dust bunnies out, new needle etc etc. nothing worked. and with the repair bill, i figured it might be better to just get a new one. no machine is worth fixing if the repairs cost more than the machine. DX