Machine quilting help- uneven/wobbly stitching
 

Good evening everyone! It has been a while since I quilted anything so I haven't been on the board in a while. I've now crawled out from under my career training rock, so I have started sewing again. I am making a baby quilt for a friend who is having twins (surprise!) and am struggling with the quilting. I'm super rusty, so the piecing wasn't perfect, but I'm overall happy with that part. The quilting is another story... I am having issues with the stitches not being the same length, presumably because the fabric isn't moving through at the same rate. I am also getting a lot of wobbles in the lines themselves- this problem in the worst where the foot has to go over a meeting point for lots of pieces as you might expect. I did press my seams very thoroughly before I started quilting. Any tips or thoughts about what I might be doing wrong? I am using a walking foot. I am quilting on a regular, and rather cheap Brother that I've had for about 15 years. I am not sure if that has anything to do with it. Anyway- some pictures:
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What size/type needle are you using in your machine? Try a Topstitch 90/14.

What stitch length are you using? Try a 2.5 or even3.0 length.

Hopefully, the real quilters will come along with more help too.

Actually your results are not bad considering the machine you are using. What might help you with the ‘flow’ of the fabric is to lighten the presser foot pressure. If your machine has the option to do that, or to raise the height of the foot, it could handle the thickness and intersections better.

If it doesn’t have either of those adjustments and you plan to quilt more now, it may be time to look for a machine that was made for quilting.

Well, this is embarrassing. I have no idea what needle I'm using... I'll check. And my stitch length is around 2, so I'll try lengthening that. Thanks!

I was afraid of that. I don't think it has either of those options, but I'll look it up in my manual. I was just recently pondering getting a better machine, but couldn't think of anything I hadn't been able to do just fine with mine...maybe I found it. Thanks for your input :)

Lengthen your stitches to 3 or even 3.5, and use a #14 topstitch needle rather than a " quilting" needle. Next, be sure to support the excess quilt fabric ...either put an ironing board set same height as sewing table, or just pile it on sewing table...don't expect the machine to pull it up from your lap. If your machine doesn't have an extension table, you can make one of styrofoam covered with plastic ( just tape plastic in place).This gives you a bigger surface to place your hands for guiding in a straight line. If you feel you're still getting " hung up" on seams, stop before the seam allowance with needle up, left presser foot, manually move fabric a tad, lower foot, use handwheel to make the stitch & repeat as necessary ( it should take @ 4 stitches).

Your quilt looks lovely and the colors are great! You're doing wonderfully. Keep it up!

A couple thoughts:

I'm guessing your machine isn't inset into a table so that the bed of the machine is level with the surface of the table. This is actually the single most important thing that I felt really changed how I quilted. I spent about $20 and built myself a foam insulation table topper (https://youtu.be/g14govA4pIM) following that tutorial except I also taped the vinyl down around the edges so that there is no exposed foam and the vinyl stays perfectly smooth. I even piece with this topper on - it's fabulous. It's really important to have no drag around the machine. Any drag will cause you to fight the weight of the quilt and that causes uneven stitches even with a walking foot.

You can build a temporary surround for yourself out of boxes, books, magazines, or anything to bring the level even with your machine, but any of those will still create a little bit of drag. Plus, magazines will sometimes catch on the corners and it's annoying, but at least those options don't require building anything. It really only took me a couple hours anyway and it was cheap.

My machine is a $250 Janome that I still love and I've quilted many quilts on it. It's certainly possible for you to do this on your machine! I see that you pin basted. Did you spray baste at all? My one experience with spray baste also left me with very uneven stitch length because the spray baste was causing so many more issues for me. If you did, you can iron it to set it better and I've heard that helps.

My machine doesn't have the option to lighten the presser foot pressure but slowing down and making sure my hands were really helping to keep the drag off the needle really helped alot. Lots of people use gloves of some type to help get better grip on the quilt - gardening gloves, grippy sponges, shelf liner, and they do make quilting gloves too. I love Machingers gloves.

You can also quilt with a pillow in your lap to raise the height of the quilt bulk closer to the table and machine. If you don't have something like your ironing board to the left of you, you should set it to the height of your table to help handle the weight. It's also good if you can figure out a way to prevent the quilt from falling off your table. If you're quilting on a dining table, maybe push extra chairs against the table behind the machine so the quilt doesn't slide off?

Don't forget that when the quilt is washed, your stitching will melt a little more into the quilt. I can't sew in a straight line at all but somehow after the quilt is washed, it all looks fine.

Also make sure you don’t have any constriction on the movement of the quilt while stitching. Such as hanging up on the edge of something where the feed dogs cannot pull it though.