Candace

Are you sure it' s a slant shank foot?

Stitchnripper

I am guessing it is, because it seems to fit, and the label on the envelope says Big foot slant Shank for Singer. It is just curious to me that it will straight stitch fine, but won't pick up the bobbin thread with this foot on. I have re-cleaned it (not much to find) and am still very much a novice at this, but, am determined!!

Candace

You can try increasing the pressure on the pressure foot and going with a larger needle. This sometimes helps. Or at least lessens the number of skipped stitches. HOWEVER, I must tell you that most of my 301's that did this were a hair out of time. The straight stitch was fine, but the minute you start FMQing it would skip because the timing wasn't dead on. And the movements you make with the quilt sandwich while FMQing really test the machine's timing. I've had to retime most of my 301's for this very reason. And after retiming them, the skipped stitching was gone.

Stitchnripper

Thanks Candace. I have never retimed anything so I'll guess tomorrow I will get busy on trying to figure that out.

I see a diagram on line from sewusa. I think I need a good night's sleep and some measuring tool for the clearances.

Candace

Check the timing to make sure it's a hair off before touching it. Alternately, you can try another FMQing foot to see if it likes it better than your purple one.

Macybaby

Make sure your tension is engaging with the foot down. I've had a similar problem with some machines/fabric combo where the foot is not holding the fabric firm enough, and for some reason this interferes with the thread's ability to form a loop the shuttle hook can "grab" so no stitches are formed. Take the foot off all together, lower the presser bar to engage the tension, hold the fabric smooth and firm with your hands, and see if it will take a stitch. This is the way the "old" instructions are for doing darning and such - no foot is used at all, and FMQ is just a modification of darning. But if you don't have the tension on the fabric correct, you can end up with all sorts of issues that appear to be thread tension, but they are not. These types of problems are normal with quilting machines and often the problem is the quilt it stretched too tight, than the other way around.

Stitchnripper

Thanks Macybaby. Loading up on chocolate right now to get myself into gear to look at it again.

Stitchnripper

Okay, first I sewed a beautiful straight stitch with the regular foot. Took it off, and tried to get the bobbin thread to pick up on fabric. No go. Moved the tension dial up and down and had no effect. I had smoothed the fabric out with my hands. It was three layers of quilt sandwich. Going to try and figure out of the timing is off.

Also going to try putting more pressure on the presser foot and a bigger needle. I'm using 50 wt. cotton thread top and bottom.

Stitchnripper

Don't know which thread will get read, if any, so here is my current situation. I got another FMQ foot which works better, but, it is very close to the fabric and even though the feed dogs are down and stitch length set as low as it will go, I have to really pull it through. It moves, but not so flowy as my dinky mechanical Brother which is my go-to machine for FMQ. If I rig the new foot just a bit, to be ever so slightly off the fabric as it goes under the needle, it doesn't make a stitch. The tension is definitely engaged. What's up with that?

Candace

Pictures of the issue and feet would be helpful.