Hi. I was taking a quilting class and discovered this machine doesn't lower its feed dogs. Does anyone else have this machine and if so how do they machine quilt with it?

On my old Singer, the feeddogs don't lower, but there is a little plastic plate that fits over them so you can quilt. Did you check in your accessories to see if you have something like that?

Yes. I even went to the Singer store and the man said nothing can go over the feed dogs. There must be something I can do. It was an expensive machine.

Wonder if you could put a piece of heavy plastic (like a butter tub lid) over the feeddogs with a cutout for the needle and tape it in place. I don't know if that would hurt them or not.

cut a piece of sheet plastic (about like a 3x5 card) and tape over the feed dogs. Punch a hole for the needle.
the hole should be larger than the needle.

My old kenmore came with what they call a darning plate, look up your machine brand and search for darning plate, I know when I had misplaced mine for a while I was going to order a plastic one. However I don't see why taping a thin plastic like mentioned above wouldnt work.

I had a Singer computerized, I forget what model, that had a plastic thing you put over the feed dogs. I gave the machine to my DIL since I hated it so much. No more Singers for me.

On my new one the feeddogs lower. And I don't know how to do fmq, so it wasn't a problem with the other one. It wasn't until I got the new one that I realized what that plastic plate was for! (O: I like my touch and sew, but I've only ever had Singers, so nothing to compare to. I'm not good enough to justify spending big bucks on a machine. Plus it's strictly for fun for me. I don't do commissioned quilts or quilts that I might sell.

I have heard of using a playing card taped over the feed dogs. I've never tried it though.

I actually prefer leaving the feed dogs up when I free motion. I have more control of the fabric that way, & use a spring loaded foot & it works just fine. So you may want to try that on your machine...

I had always had Singers till I discovered the Vikings when I worked at the old Joann store where the dealer was. Then on my break one day she demonstrated the Designer I. Now that is all I will own. Yes they are expensive, and while I do sew for people I rarely use the embroidery stuff for customers. I enjoy sewing for gifts and just love experimenting with all the stuff the new machines do. My new love is quilting with the huge embroidery hoops on the Designer Diamond.

and i've done FMQ with them up too!!

I was also going to say that you can FMQ with the feed dogs up. I have done it and had no issues. Some people prefer to do it this way.

I must say the FMQ is a real challenge to me anyhow. I guess I wanted to find out that if the dogs could go down all my troubles would go away! Right now I find that the machine is like a wild horse that gets away on me.

I had a machine like that and I used a piece of the temp plate plastic material that I bought at Joanns......worked like a charm

I'll try that.