I have a Singer 66 and a Singer 99 and would like to know if I could cover the feed dogs with a piece of upholstery vinyl...and cut a small hole for the needle. Sort of like one of those sliders for MQ. I seem to remember that being done with cardboard when your machine didn't have a cover plate. I want to try FMQ with them.

That should work just fine - vinyl will be better than the business card with a small hole I used to cover my feed dogs! I use a slider now.

If you have one of the old Singer buttonholers, it has a plate to cover the feed dogs as you need the feed dogs covered when you make buttonholes. There's no reason that I can think of why this same plate wouldn't work for FM quilting too. I haven't tried it yet but I may one of these times.

Hancocks carry feed dog covers, very affordable.

Another tip I learned on this board is to set your stitch length to zero so the feed dogs don't try to move your "cover" forward.

Thanks for all the helpful advice!! I knew my vintage Kenmores from the early 60's had a cover plate but I had never seen one for the early Singers...one is 1914, the other is 1926. I thought they might be model specific. So I dug through my box of old attachments and lo and behold...I found a buttonhole attachment that came with the treadle machine I just bought two weeks ago. It screwed on OK and the needle doesn't hit anything so I think it's a go. I haven't tried sewing with it yet...it's really stormy here this afternoon with a tornado watch in effect so I don't want to have anything plugged in that's unnecessary. I think I will practice treadling...the last time I did that was in jr high home ec in the late 50's. Sure hope it's like riding a bike :lol: :lol:

Again ladies, thanks for the help.

You don't really have to drop or cover your feed dogs at all - in fact, covering them may make it more difficult to move the fabric through smoothly, because of the thickness the cover introduces between the bottom of the foot and the needle plate.

I've forgotten to lower my feed dogs a couple of times and I really couldn't tell much difference. One time, I quilted with them up for so long, it chewed up my Sew-Slip mat - and even then, the only reason I stopped was that the thread was catching on the chewed up mat and causing skipped stitches.

Try FMQ without covering, first. :)

It's going to be more difficult with a 66 and 99, to begin with because of the bobbin configuration - no sense making it even harder on yourself. Especially if you're new to FMQ. :)

My old machine needed to be covered. I took one of those plastic stencils that I bought for about $.50 at Joanns and cut it to fit. It's smooth so the fabric slid perfectly fine. Great cheap way to do it!

Darning plate for the 66, 99. 185 will work for what you want.

Billy