Sarabela

I bought a free motion foot a few weeks ago and today I decided to try it out. At first I couldn't get it to work, with the foot down I couldn't move the fabric so I did a quick search and found a Leah Day video on how to modify a generic free motion foot. A rubber band around it and voila, it works. I'm using it on my Singer 328k and plan to give it a try on my 1930 66. This is my first go at free motion quilting so I'm just using scraps but I think I'm getting the hang of it. I had to turn the thread tension way up as I was getting loops on the back but since I did that it looks great (other than my novice random stitches).

Candace

I've never had to modify or use a rubber band on my FMQ feet.

Mrs. SewNSew

I'm doing FMQ on my first quilt with a Singer 15-125. I didn't have to modify the foot and it's going well. It's not one of those feet with the long spring. It's just an old vintage foot lol!

Sarabela

Let's see if I can explain the problem. Since I didn't buy a Singer FMQ foot it doesn't work exactly as it should. When the needle is up the screw that holds the needle in lifts the little lever on the foot above the spring making the foot lift up so you can move the fabric. The needle bar screw on my machine doesn't go up high enough to raise the lever so the foot stays down on the fabric so you can't slide the fabric around. A rubber band above the spring raises up the foot enough so the fabric is free to slide. You don't get the hopping motion this way but it works.

Mrs. SewNSew

I have the same with the bar goes over the needle clamp screw but it hops. It also never fully sets on the fabric even in the down position..it is positioned just above. I say whatever works!

Cari-in-Oly

Whatever works is my motto too. I do most of my free motion work on Orphan Annie, a Universal brand clone. She absolutely does not like any free motion or darning foot I've tried, so I use her regular straight stitch foot. Kind of makes it harder to see what I'm doing, but it works for me on this machine. Sometimes I even forget to lower the feed dogs and it makes no difference.

Cari

ThayerRags

My wife ran into a problem doing FMQ on her Singer 301A this weekend. She’s done really a lot of FMQ on it, and is getting quite comfortable with the meandering pattern. She’s was using a hopping foot with a clear see-through foot, size 11 needle, Madeira Article 751 metalic top thread, and regular C&C thread in the bobbin. She’s used the same set-up plenty of times before, with the only change for this project being the Madeira thread on top.

But this weekend, her machine began skipping stitches. At first, one or two here and there, but then got progressively worse where it would miss several in a row. Want to guess what the problem was that we figured out?

CD in Oklahoma

Cari-in-Oly

The needle? Ive never used metallic thread, but I thought you had to use a bigger needle with a bigger eye.

Cari

elnan

I believe that Leah Day also bends the bar back.. a lot .. in addition to the wrapping of a rubber band. Seems to me she did that because she could not stand the hopping up and down and the clacking it created.

ThayerRags

Thanks for making a guess Cari-in-Oly.

Actually, the size 11 needle is a good size for the thread. The thread is fairly fine for a metallic. The spool says that it’s “metalized Polyester+Polyamide” made in West Germany. It’s a fairly recent-made spool I think. It has the grooves in the rim of the plastic spool to trap the thread end during storage similar to the new C&C XP thread spools are made now.

The needle is somewhat involved in the problem, but not the cause. There’s more to it than that....

Hint: The wife was quilting a big stack of small Mugg-Ruggs.

CD in Oklahoma