I like to stipple areas of my quilts. Stippling can be hard work....I understand that there is now available a "stitch regulator" for home sewing machines that is suppose to make this easier. Do you have any information about these stitch regulators. I have a pfaff machine and would be interested in getting one if they "work."

Eunice

I have a Bernina 730 sewing machine with a stitch regulator. I love it but you still have to do the quilting yourself. The stitch regulator keeps the stitches at a uniform length. I don't know if they are available for all machines, but I recommend checking into it. It's well worth the money.

I've heard of stitch regulators for long arm machines but I thought the length of your stitch was determuned by how fast and far you move the quilt.

i can spell determined i just can't type lol

What is stippling?

Hi Kathy, When free motion quilting, the length of stitch is regulated by how fast or slow you move the quilt but if the movement of your quilt isn't consistent your stitches aren't all the same length. A stitch regulator senses how fast the quilt is moving and helps regulate the stitch length even if you don't move your quilt at the same speed all the time. It takes practice either way, but a stitch regulator makes it a lot easier. My machine isn't a long arm. Bernina makes home sewing machines with stitch regulators.

Hi Ruthie, Stippling is a type of quilting where you drop the feed dogs and stitch a continuous curvy line of stitching that never crosses over itself. There are no corners and the space between lines is about 1/4" or less. If it's much larger than that, it's called meandering. If you go to the following link, it will show you a demonstration.
http://www.taunton.com/Threads/pages/tvt035.asp

Minda, thanks for clearing that up. I prefer meander to stipple because to me stipple makes a quilt less snuggly. I do like the look though. I may check to see if my Singer can use a stitch regulator.

The only machine that has that is the Bernina, not sure about the long arms, I think some of them have them also. But I know, unless it has come out in the past month or two for other machines, that Bernina is the only one. Ask me how I know this........ I tried and tried.

Donna

I don't have a stitch regulator for my Elna and there are none available for it. So I made one. To a block of wood about 6"x12"x1" I attached a strip of wood about 1/2" thick across one end. The foot pedal rests on the base up against the wood strip so I can press down all the way but the machine is only going about half speed. After using this for over a year I find that most of the time for free motion quilting I can now coordinate the speed of my hands and the machine without my "speed controller". May be a crude solution -- but it sure helped me.