I have a megaquilter and I am having a heck of a time with the tension. The preset tension is 3.5. So is that tension setting with the foot up or down? I have noticed that there are little dots on the top of the quilt when I sewed with varigated thread. On the bottom I saw dots too. At first I thought it was the top thread and changed the tension and no matter what I did it didnt change the sewing. Any suggestions?

I don't have a Mega quilter but have been spending a lot of time on my machine "fighting" with the tension...
Have the foot up when threading..
Make sure you have the right needle for the thread you are using.
My machine likes some brands of threads better than others.
Hope this helps.....

Some of these machines are so fussy and have lots of likes and dislikes..Worse than kids lol

The yahoo group for the megaquilter has tons of information.

There are 2 differnent machines with the name MegaQuilter. The original MegaQuilter with a 9" throat and the MegaQuilter 18.8, which has an 18" throat. The MegaQuilter 18.8 is always used on a quilting frame. The original can be used on or off a frame.

If you have the original 9" Megaquilter, you must thread the machine with the presser foot in the up position. This releases all tension on the upper tension disks and allows the thread to sit properly between the disks. The tension dial refers to the upper tension with the presser foot down. Also, the machine will not sew with the presser foot in the up position. It must be down to sew.

As for the MegaQuilter 18.8, I have no experience with that machine. However, the tension should work similarly.