As I was wrestling with my quilt tonight a question came into my mind. I was wondering if I was a taller person if it would be easier to FMQ on my DSM. So my question is this, 1) Do you enjoy FMQ on your DSM? and 2) How tall are you? Thanks in advance for your input!!

I am 5'6 and I have a juki I finally purcased a gracie frame because I could not wrestle the quilts anymore!

Free motion quiting and Domestic sewing machine (just in case some were not familiar with the terms :)

I am 5'2 & FMQ on a domestic Janome with a 9" throat or bed space.

I hate to FMQ. I have a Viking Platinum 775...not a very large throat space. :( BTW...I'm 4'11". I hate wrestling with the quilt.

"Ditto" but, being 5'2", I find I have a extremely hard time pushing the quilt through the throat (9" Janome). I don't know if longer arms would be better or not LOL! I am getting the HQ Sweet Sixteen in June, I can hardly wait!

Just FYI - I'm 5'2"as well, and I'm using a Bernina w/a 7 inch throat. After doing some FMQ yesterday I felt like I had been wrestling an aligator for a few hours. My upper back and shoulders were killing me. Today I can feel the start of tendonitis in my right elbow. Is it any wonder that when I get to the FMQ stage I start to procrastinate with my current project. I dream of a LA and having a business, right now I'm thinking of looking for a Juki on a Grace frame in the meantime.

I'm 5'4''. I was getting mean tension pains and headaches wresting a quilt through the 5'' harp space of my little Singer 4210.

Now I have 11'' on my Janome Horizon and am happy. I don't know where I'd put more body length if I had it, lol! It's a good fit. ;)

Thanks for the translation :lol:

I have a really comfy office chair that is adjustable and I find that works for me, but I am 5.7/5, the other tip I have found with FMQ, that I found in a book, relax with a glass of wine before starting. It really works as long as don't over do it :mrgreen:

I would enjoy the FM more if I wasn't so tense from trying to wrestle the quilt and I have an Elna with 10 throat, I don't have a clue how these people with a little bit of room manage to do FM, but I congratulate them. My quilts are usually oversized kings. I'm 5"7

I'm 5'8". but I haven't tried FMQ on my DSM yet. Sometimes sewing clothes for DH (he's 6'4" and 300 lbs) I have trouble moving all that material around. I do plan to give it a try on the new quilt I'm making for our King size bed.

I've only done 2 quilts on my DSM, I'm 5'5. What made a differance was wearing gloves. I bought some lightweight garden gloves with a rubber palm and fingers. You can also buy these at the LQS. Getting good grip helped so much.

I think your height shouldn't matter if you have the sewing machine and your chair at the right height. I FMQ several king sized quilts on a small Janome with a 5-6" harp space (I'm 5'7") . It was awful until I realized my chair was too low and my hands weren't parallel to the machine. When I fixed that it was much easier.

Gloves do help and you have to have something to support the quilt or you'll just be fighting the process the entire way.

I'm about 5'7" or 5'8" and I love FMQ! I would much rather quilt than piece and have often resorted to buying tops on eBay so that I've got something to quilt.

I used to forget to breathe - I'd get hot and sweaty and my shoulders would just burn while I was fighting that quilt. It took quite a while to get over that, but now I really love quilting.

First, I set up my machine and the quilt so that the weight and bulk of the quilt weren't fighting me - no more big "logs" of quilt dragging and pulling toward the floor.

I have my sewing machine cabinet backed up to a large table and I have a folding table tucked under the wing of the cabinet on the left side so that the weight of the quilt is supported all around. The whole quilt is piled up loosely on the tables and under the arm of the machine, and pulled smooth and flat in the area around the needle.

When you're in the middle of a king-size or queen-size quilt, this is hard work, so fortunately it doesn't last long. I start in the middle and work outward so that I get the hardest part done first and so that any "ease" in the fabric has a chance to get quilted out before I get to the outside edges.

Then I found that you can also apply the borders and quilt them *after* you've already quilted the main center part of the quilt - not having borders eliminates some of the bulk that has to be pushed through the arm. Every little bit helps when you're quilting in the middle of a large quilt.

I don't get that tension in the shoulders and neck that I used to get - I think that disappeared about the time that I slowed the machine down and quit trying to sew at jackrabbit speed. The tension was coming from feeling out of control and not knowing where I was going, next.

Now, I practice on a Dry Erase board over and over - when I can "autopilot" through a design and cover the board with it without thinking about what to do next, I'm ready to sew the design.

That alone took a huge amount of stress out of FMQ.

Feeling as if the design is going to flow out of the needle without my having to think about it was a huge turning point in really starting to enjoy the process. :)

thepolyparrot-how about we sent all our tops to you? LOL

that's what I'm screaming! lol :lol:
you sure make it sound like there's hope for some of us! :thumbup:

I'm 5'7" and use my domestic sewing machine to free motion quilt too. i always get sore shoulder and neck muscles if i do a lot of fmq or just piecing.

You know, I did consider doing that - volunteering to quilt for someone else.

That's about the time I discovered vintage quilt tops on eBay and craigslist.

All this fabric and I'm buying someone else's UFO's. :oops:

I am starting to think that height could be a factor here. It's all well and good to tell someone to raise your chair so your shoulders or arms are flat on the sewing service, but if that raises you short little legs up off the floor you can't reach the foot pedal-LOL! I have my chair as high as I can get w/out my feet being off the floor, the only alternative I can think of is to get my DH to cut a few inches off the legs of my sewing table. Sounds a bit drastic but I think it may work. I think some of my other troubles are coming from a bad back (5 surgeries to date) and a bad shoulder(2 surgeries and waiting on a cortisone shot). I already use gloves and yes I find they help a lot, but are not the end all and be all of FMQ.

I have the same problem you do with not being able to reach the foot pedal. I put a huge yellow pages phone book underneath it and now it is great! I wish I had a sewing table that my machine could sit down in but, alas...too expensive!

I'm 5'5" and FMQ on my domestic Janome with a 9" bed space, too.

I think you could be onto something there - with your back surgeries, you're going to be prone to pain issues as it is, without adding the strain of trying to reach the pedal! :( Throwing all your weight to one side like that = muscle fatigue and more pain.

I have just the opposite problem - my legs won't fit under most sewing cabinets. I tried putting my favorite cabinet up on pieces of 2X4 and I use an adjustable height chair set up high. This is working out so well, I'm going to make frames to go under all the machines that I use a lot. It's so worth it to sit comfortably at a sewing machine, for a change!