Originally Posted by Iceblossom

Do you also pin? I would lay it out flat on my ironing board and pin about every two inches.

I recently dealt with a bunch of 6 to 6.5" squares that I sliced along the diagonal and had very little issue even without starch, but my machine has a good pull and I start with leaders.

I'm thinking you are possibly having issues with the machine pulling on your fabrics or that you are putting some tension into the fabric as you are feeding it in.

My usual machine is unhappy and I have my back-up portable Brother in use -- it requires me tug slightly on the fabric coming out in order to get the feed coming in correctly. I hope that makes some sense, basically it boils down that my Bernina feeds nicely (sometimes I fumble finger the ends of the pieces and it trails off a bit but that is me and not the machine) as did my old vintage machine and I could let them do the work. With the Brother I need to help it along a little and from the back of all things and not from feeding it in to get it to work smoothly.