craftgrrl | Damn Bobbin Case Threading!

Could somebody please help me solve the mystery of threading the bobbin case?

This has always my downfall with sewing machines - threading the bobbin case.

I've been looking for help on the webz but while winding the bobbin is something every site is happy to walk you through, actually threading the weird fiddly little bobbin case is left out. Winding the bobbin is easy, threading the bobbin case is not, and I can't find any help with that. So I'm hoping that some sewing machine guru might be able to explain to me what I'm doing wrong.

Specifically the issue is this:

I can't see how the thread is supposed to get from the initial little slot at the side of the bobbin case, pulled down and underneath another little bit of metal and then into the bigger wider slot. There is no opening or hole there to let it pass through from a very tight little space squashed under the metal into that bigger slot. Yet this is what the manual's instructions and diagram implies. My partner can't see how it's supposed to work either.

This is a brand new Brother machine so I don't expect it to have faulty parts.

So, not being able to see how their instructions worked I decided to do what looked obvious to me - just thread it directly through the bigger slot so it looks like the last picture in the diagram. It has almost worked too except that the bottom thread now either gets very loose and loopy, knotted up beyond a joke, or it breaks and I'm only sewing with the top thread.

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