How do you set you thread tension for free motion quilting on a home machine. Do you set it the same for straight stitch sewing?

I sure would like to know how to do that. seems my top stitches are small and have little trees. will wait for some answers. Maria

on my kenmore sewing machine , when i FMQ, i put my pressure adjuster on O and my thread tension on 4, the other day i was FMQ on a thick quilt and had to have it down around a 3 i was using a differant color in the bobbin than the top thread so was having a problem with the bobbin coming up on the top of my quilt

i hope this works for you , kinda practice till you find the right number

The only way I know to check to bobbin tension is to take it out and hold it by the string. If it drops immediatly it is too loose but if when you give it a slight shake it doesn't move then it is too tight. Do you know of another way to test the bobbin tension?

When I took a class for machine quilting, we used the book by Maureen Noble "Machine Quilting Made Easy" and she had a great tension exercise.

Make a 12-14" sandwich of plain muslin with whatever batting you are going to use. Mark the square with horizontal lines ~ 1" apart and number each line starting from 0.

Thread your machine and set your tension at 0. Sew across the lines from marked 0 to marked 1. Change the tension to 1 and sew to marked line 2 (and so on).

When you remove your sandwich you can REALLY tell which tension works best for that particular setup with your machine.

It is suggested to do this exercise when you change thread weights or some other factor.

I felt much more confident in trying new things once I figured out my machine.

Thanks Martina. That makes a lot of sense.
I will try that tonight.

when my tension was to loose i had bird nest on the back of my quilt, the thread was to loose

well some machines may differ but i have never altered anything. just FMQ with feed dogs down or up. took a class and was told to leave them up. mostly do it with them down though. i don't change stitch length because how slow or fast i move the quilt determines the stitch length.
you must lower your needle and up again to pull the bobbin thread up to the top, hold onto both and start stitching almost in place. a few tiny stitches. then stop needle down, and then clip those threads out of the way.
fairly fast foot pedal speed and slower movement of quilt speed and you should do fine.