Major FM quilting problem
 

I just got started to quilt today using free motion & my stitches keep skipping making "long" stitches even though I am moving my fabric slowly. Seems as though the top thread & bobbin are not catching in places leaving big gaps in the stitches. I've never had this problem before. I cleaned my bobbin case area before I started (nothing unusual about that), put in a new needle, lowered my feed dogs & put on my open toe foot & tried a sample. It's terrible. I went back to regular sewing (up feed dogs & regular machine foot and it seems to sew just fine. What do you think is my problem? I'm just at my wits end. I've re-threaded the needle & bobbin several times but nothing seems to help. I need y'alls help on this one.
My machine is a Janome Magnolia 7330.

Try adjusting your hopper/FMQ foot so it is as close to the fabric surface without dragging.

If it's too high the pull as you move can cause skipped stitches.

Try a topstitch 90/14 needle.

Did this problem start happening when you changed the needle? Or before that?

What kind of FMQ foot are you using: gliding or hopping?
Are you quilting on something different than you usually do such as batik or a different weight of cotton fabric (bedsheet, tshirt, etc)?
Is the batting different than what you normally use?
Different thread than you normally use?

I have a Janome Magnolia 7318 so a similar machine to yours except it's mechanical. I love this machine but it really hates a gliding style foot. Anytime my machine doesn't have enough pressure from the foot, it doesn't like to form stitches correctly so if you're using a gliding one, make sure you have it set low enough? If a hopping foot, make sure it's lowering correctly?

People have mentioned before that they've cleaned out the entire bobbin area and then when they went back and checked again, there was a tiny thread stuck somewhere very difficult to see that was causing the problem? So maybe clean out the bobbin area again, re-thread, and try again?

Did you solve your problem?

As mentioned, the height of the foot is the first thing I would check. It should just glide across the fabric. Any higher and it will likely skip or break.

Watson

Well, I worked & worked with it & decided to just do straight line quilting. I'll try to figure out what's wrong on some sample pieces. This quilt I'm making has black backing so I didn't want to have to do a lot of picking out if things go bad with the meandering. Thanks for all the suggestions. About a week ago I did a big sample to make sure I had the right tension & everything & did not have a problem at that time. I'll keep fiddling with it when I finish up this quilt & figure out what's wrong. Thank goodness my machine still sews! I can do without FM quilting but can't do without my machine.