When I was quilting on my domestic janome, I learned not to drop the feed dogs, but instead I loosened the presser foot some. This gave me more control and a better stitch. I would experiment with your particular machine and see what you like.

I agree. I have accedently let them up when FMQ and I can really telll the difference. The FD want to move the quikt foward and you want the quilt to move in every direction. this confusion could cause you machine to go out of tme since most machines are computer driven. why take a chance!

I accidentally left mine up one day and I had much better results! So now I leave them up all the time. As someone else said...I'm still not great at FMQ but it's better!! Then I found out Leah Day leaves hers up all the time, and she is an amazing quilter so I don't think I'm teaching myself bad habits.

It does seem counter-intuitive, but try it!

I drop mine. I might try to leave them up and see if anything looks different.

When doing FMQ with feed dogs up, you still need to change the stitch length to 0. When you do this, the feed dogs don't move and won't be trying to move the quilt forward.

I thought you were supposed to keep the dogs down with the Slider or it would grunge up the works somehow. I once managed to have my slider slide right out of position and I sewed a piece of it into my quilt while merrily FMQ'ing!

I have tried the Leah Day method (without slider!) but I think it keeps the sandwich moving in one direction but not helpful if you are moving the fabric sideways. ???

On the other other hand, I am not proficient at FMQ and it is the most dreaded part of the quilting experience for me, so what do I know anyway!!!

Sorry, I slept too long and my brain is fuzzy. I thought you were talking about dog food. But I never heard about any dog food with initials. .......read a little further down - Embarrassing!!!!!! I have never yet worried or thought about feed dogs. I clean everything up after I finish a quilt and then I forget what I cleaned. Not necessary for me to know the ins and out, only when I have a problem. Then I go berserk!!!!! Have a good day. I am going to spend a beautiful day out on the deck with a glass of wine and my trusty Singer Instruction Book!!!!!! Maybe I will learn something. Edie

That is exactly what I do.

I didn't do that...I leave the stitch length alone, leave the feed dogs up, and it still slides around just fine because the foot isn't putting pressure on the fabric constantly. I honestly don't feel any difference/drag with the dogs up or down.

Might be one of those things you just have to experiment with. I've only done FMQ on one machine (Janome 6600) so maybe it's different from machine to machine...?

I have the Juki TL98Q and have always put the feed dogs down to FMQ. I will try a practice sandwich to see if leaving them up gives me a better result, but I haven't had any issues with the feed dogs down.