There's no way that that should be happening. Take the machine back to your dealer along with the washed items. I have embroidered towels, jeans etc which have survived many washings! The machine should be knotting threads by itself. It's not your job!

You could be clipping your threads too close or not pulling the thread tails to the back. You should join the Yahoo groups for Futura. You will learn from them.

Thank you for all the responses. I am new to all this but I used the hyperfont to get my font. What are tie down stitches and how do you know if they are there?

i say take the machine back... I hear a lot of complaints on that futura...

It's actually a lock stitch where the needle penetrates the same spot several times to form a knot so to speak.

I found a solution for some designs that don't have that ending lock stitch. When the machine says it's done with that section, I hit the backspace (middle button) 3 times, hit the green light, and stitch to the end. It works.

The other option is to cut the jump stitches (the long stitches between letters) inbetween and pull them to the back when the design is completed.

I also recommend you join several of the Futura groups on Yahoo and review your machine manual and video that came with your machine. You learn a lot from these sources.