Dawnstar

Hello! I am going to attempt to do some free motion quilting. I used a scrap piece of batting and fabric from the quilt I知 making to help perfect my tension. I have a brother PQ1500sl machine. I知 unsure of how the stitches should look with the right tension. I had to tighten a whole lot on both the bobbin and the top tension for it to look like this. Is this good tension for free motion quilting?
Thanks in advance,
Dawn

Jingle

The links don't work.

I use a straight stitch only two machines. I set top tension on 2 or thereabouts. I always use a size 16 organ needle. I hope this gives you a starting point.

rryder

The best way to check your tension for FMQ is to do a series of loops, direction changes etc. That way you will see if you're getting any eye lashing. I have a PQ1500s that was my main FMQ machine for a number of years and my experience with it was that I needed to slightly lower the top tension. I also tweaked the tension on the bobbin case depending on what thread I was using. You can use the same test for bobbin case tension for this machine that the handiquilter folks demonstrate for their long arm machines: load your bobbin into the bobbin case then hold the case flat with the open side face up (so you can see the bobbin), with your other hand pick up on the thread coming out of the tension spring and see if you can lift the bobbin case. You should be able to lift it so it is standing in your hand. If you can't lift it to stand, then you need to tighten your tension. If you can lift it all the way out of your hand and it hangs there without dropping down at all, then you need to loosen your tension. For my machine it worked best when I could get it to stand and feel a slight pressure on the thread as I pulled it up, but not so much tension that it lifted the case out of my hand. From there, try some stitches doing loops, direction changes (with points- like in a spiral in and back out) etc. on a scrap piece and tweak as needed.

Hope that helps.

Rob

Jennifer23

If you had to tighten both the bobbin and top tension from where you piece, then it's probably too tight, both top and bottom. What did it look like before you made these changes?

I agree with other posters - to see if the tension is right for fmq, you need to sew some loops rather than just straight lines. Tension problems show themselves most readily on curves.

Tartan

In the sample, is that straight line stitching? The tension looks fine for straight line stitching but FMQing is a whole other ballgame. As other have mentioned, you need to put on a darning or FMQ foot and practice some loops and designs.