Hey All,
I'm new to the board and hoping someone can help me with a problem that's come up with quilting using my Janome 419S.
I was quilting a lap quilt for myself and things were going along great, and I was having a blast since it's my first attempt at machine quilting anything. The stitches were locking fine until I was halfway done, then, not so much. I started to develop small loops on the underside of the fabric, then big sloppy loops, despite the fact that my thread tension is set at 9. And let me repeat, the quilting was going along fine for almost half the quilt.
Some tech info: I'm quilting with the feed dogs dropped and using a darning foot made by Janome that was recommended to me for quilting on my machine, the machine itself is 3 or 4 years old. And I haven't been quilting for hours on end so the machine can't be overheating.
So I read through my owners manual and tried the very short list of suggestions to fix the problem, when none of those worked I tried everything else I could think of including cleaning and oiling the machine, changing needles, changing to different types of needles, changing the thread, changing the foot, playing with the thread tension more, glaring at it etc etc etc.
The weird thing is the machine sews fine when the feed dogs are engaged and I'm using a walking foot, put the darning foot on and it's back to being a disaster!
Has anyone else encountered this problem with a Janome or any other sewing machine? Any advice? I really don't want to send it in to the repair guy (would rather spend the money of fabric!) unless I have to.
Any input would be appreciated!
Zoo