Oh yes, and like everyone else, I worked around it, throwing the thread away, if it was a mess, or rewinding it. A flower for you.
Yes, it has happened to me. I think in my case it was because I was re-using a cheap bobbin, and it just couldn't handle the stress of having the thread wound on it again. And then, being obsessive as I am, I took a new bobbin and rewound all the thread onto it so it wouldn't be wasted. How silly is that?
Sandra, that has happened to me - for some reason that embroidery cotton is very strong and it can twist in the bobbin and get higher on one side than the other - then it just popped the top of the bobbin off and jsut like you said - cotton every where. Hehehe! *4U