Originally Posted by
Nilla
I talked with my dealer. She is confident my machine is good, but just to be sure she's having the long arm teacher and the machine tech come out to my house. We're going to load a quilt on my machine so the educator can adjust the tension herself to make sure the baseline is good. Then we will quilt a while on it so if the machine isn't working correctly, the tech can fix it while the educator is there to be sure it's quilting well. They did this with one other customer and apparently her machine needed a lot of adjusting, but she's been happy with it ever since.
I really like and respect my dealer and I'm glad they didn't just leave me hanging. I'm hesitantly hopeful. They are confident I'll be a happy quilter yet, so we will see!
When they come, be sure to have a pencil and paper handy to make notes of what they do and what they tell you. Note what thread they use too, unless they are using yours.
The suggestion to wind a few bobbins is a good one too.
I would use two old sheets with batting or some old fabric vs an actual quilt top for them to practise on too - that way you can play around without guilt and "re-cycle" it after. I even wrote notes right on the sandwich with my pen for future reference.
My dealer tech told me to mark the tension knob somehow so I could know what was the "sweet spot" for my usual type of quilt top, backing and batting. I was also told to adjust by a click or two (vs large amounts) and stitch, check, then adjust etc. By keeping track of the # of clicks (and which direction) I would be able to return to the "sweet spot" or at least know how far off I was.
I think this marking/counting would work too if I were to use a different backing such as minkee - I intend to write this stuff down in a book just for the longarm for future reference.
Good luck!