I also am having a problem with my walking foot. i have a Kenmore and it seems like i can't line up the foot so needle doesn't hit walking foot bed...what am i doing wrong?
do i really need a walking foot to quilt my lap top?
geez

Deniseinlv are you straight stitching with your walking foot or doing something decorative? It should not be hitting the foot in straight stitch mode. Does this happen with any other foot?

I've broken a couple with mine - for me it is operator error that I get the quilt moving just fast/hard enough that it pulls the needle slightly - enough that it hits the foot instead of the hole (I have the zigzag face plate on, so that is not the issue).

Cheers, K

I'm taking a Craftsy class called Creative Quilting With Your Walking Foot (Which is VERY good by the way). Once of the first things the instructor said is that it's called a "walking foot" for a reason. It's not called a "running foot". She stressed the fact that you need to go slow with it.

I'm glad that someone posted about the possibility that the needle screw could come loose. I'll have to check that, too.

Make sure your quilt is fully supported on all sides while stitching--that is, no hanging off the back, the left side or the front. The weight of those three unsupported layers could be what's causing your needle to break.

Deniseinlv you do NOT need a walking foot to quilt. I pretty much have given up using mine and I still quilt mine on my home machine. And I go a lot faster too. LOL... Having to go slow, and keep tightening the screw, just seemed to be more irksome to me than it was worth so I gave it up. Maybe I'll give it another try if I ever get into fancy quilting, but I don't see that in my future at this time.

A walking foot is helpful for straight line quilting. The darning foot for free motion because you have more freedom over turning the quilt with the darning/hopping foot.

I find the walking foot to be extremely helpful. I finished one seam on a quilt, flipped it over and saw all the pleats and tucks and then looked more closely at my machine and realized that I still had the 1/4 inch foot on it.

Cheers, K

Cheers, K

I had a lot of trouble with needles breaking while using the quilting foot (open circle) with the walking foot. I think my problem, though, was loading the quilt into the Flynn frame incorrectly. If you look at the frame in the machine, I had the back side of the quilt (back meaning furthest away from me) rolling over the roller in the back. I think it should have been rolling under the roller in the back.