Pamela Alsbury

I am trying to teach myself how to free motion quilt, however my stitches look horrible on the back side. I'm not sure what I am doing wrong. Any advise?

fixfido

Can you post a pic of what the stitches look like? It would help a lot in determining what might be wrong. My first suspicion is a thread tension issue.

Treasureit

Here is a website that has good info.

Treasureit

OK..so here a good website http://daystyledesigns.com/freemotionquilting.htm

katier825

Practice, practice, practice! One day, you'll check the back and it looks as good as the front!

Tartan

Have you done the following: Put on your FMQ foot with the little spring in it? Lowered your feed dogs? Adjusted the tension on a scrap sandwich? Put the foot lever down before sewing even though it doesn't quite touch the fabric?
These are for most machines however some people tape a card over the feed dogs if they can't be lowered.
Some don't lower the feed dogs and put the stitch length to zero. You would have to say what your machine is before you can get more hints for that specific model. Different model, different method.

nativetexan

and you must lower your needle and then raise it to bring the bobbin thread to the top. take hold of both threads and then take a few stitches almost in place. stop and trim those threads and then continue. move the quilt slower than your foot pedal speed.

DogHouseMom

We would need pic's to help determine what kind of "horrible" it is - trust me, we've made lots of variety of "horrible" before and each of them have their own reasons for being horrible including: needle, thread, presser foot, feed dogs, bobbin wind, hand speed, machine speed, tension (usually upper), machine threading, breathing (yes - I said breathing!), and probably a few other things I forgot to mention.

Pamela Alsbury

I have the FMQ foot on and feed dogs lowered, It may have something to do with the speed in which I am moving the sandwich. I haven't changed my stitch length though. When I can I will post a few pic's so that you can see what I am talking about. Thank you all for your advise. Hope you all have a Merry Christmas :-)

traveler53

Make sure you are bringing up the bobbin thread before you start. I have learned the hard way that it can make a terrible mess on the backside.