Originally Posted by grandma pepsi
This is a FMQ question. I was told by a quilting teacher that I MUST have a 'stitch regulator' in order to do free motion quilting. (the teacher also owned a quilt shop that sold sewing machines).
I'm sure someone else has said this, but it sounds to me like she was trying to sell you a new machine.
I have a stitch regulator on my machine, but I don't use it when doing FMQ. I can turn my machine on and it will sew without using the foot pedal, so I just set my speed where I want it, hit the on/off button, and start moving my fabric. Because the machine speed doesn't change, if I keep moving my fabric at the same speed, my stitches are consistently the same length. When I am ready to stop, I stitch off the top into the batting/backing and hit the on/off button.
Unfortunately, I didn't discover this method before I put out the extra $$$ for the stitch regulator. I could have gotten the next model down without it.