The first t-shirt on my new machine is done! Lowering the thread tension was the answer. Other lessons:

• The machine stitches a few times then pauses for you to cut the tail. It is not telling you it thinks the thread broke.
• Not shrinking the pattern makes a HUGE difference. Compressing stitches is not good.
• Cheap embroidery thread is frustrating. I made a test pattern on a scrap of fabric using some cheap thread I had purchased and used for hand stitching. Very cheap, large variety of colors. But in a machine? It breaks constantly. Every couple hundred stitches, I was re-threading a broken thread. Using my good thread, I only re-threaded the machine to change colors.