Originally Posted by CindyinNY
How does an older machine like this do FMQ?
The vertical bobbin really helps when you're free-motion quilting - it's more amenable to stitching in all directions and to frequent changes of direction than a horizontal bobbin.
It likely has droppable feed dogs, but if not, it's no big deal - you just set your stitch length to "0" or cover the feed dogs with a piece of cardstock taped in place, but that's not really necessary. You can do FMQ even with the feed running - it just gives you some extra friction to deal with. :)
I just quilted most of a queen sized quilt with the feed dogs up and running. The only thing that alerted me was that they chewed up the Sew Slip mat and the thread kept hanging on one of the ragged edges. I finally removed the quilt and saw the damage to the mat.
This machine is my favorite FMQ machine - it's heavy as a truck and being installed in a heavy cabinet, it's very smooth. It sews beautifully and there's a lot more open space under the arm than on any of my modern machines.