Stippling problem
 

I think I am finally getting the hang of stippling after much practice. However, even when going slowly, I find that even though my needle is going up and down properly, my machine (Viking Sapphire 875) will skip 6-8 stitches in a row and then begin stitching again. I have rethreaded, tried straight stitching which does just fine and don't know what to do next.

your needle should be going faster than the foot pedal speed. perhaps that is some of the problem. I don't have a Viking so maybe someone else can elaborate.

Did you try changing needles? What type and size of thread and needle combination are you using?

What foot are you using? The Sapphires have an open toe foot with a spring. Sometimes that works better than the other. You will have to make sure you select it in the "tool box."

Janet

Sounds to me like you may be moving fabric around too fast. thats when I get skipped stitches. Good luck

I don't have the same machine, but was having trouble on all of them, 301, FW, Janome 6090. I'd moved from one machine to another trying to get one working. They all skipped stitches. It was me. I was moving the material too fast. Once I slowed down and just "went with the flow" it worked great! I was getting pretty frustrated, which added to the issue. I hope you get the process working good for you.

Lint? I've had a little ittsy bittsy piece of yuck cause me issues - not when I'm sewing regular but when I FMQ!!!

I had this problem on a tee shirt quilt I made for my DDIL. I blame the tee shirt fabric, the print was rubbery, which may have kept the stitch from catching. I was using my Singer 66 at the time. Sorry, I don't know the answer.

The rule I learned is "fast needle, slow hands" Once you get the hang of the speed ratio, things will go better. Keep trying and you will get into the groove. My machine has an on-off button that I can use instead of a foot pedal. This helps me tremendously because the needle moves at the exact same speed. Then only my hands are the variable.

When I do any FMQ, I turn the speed down on my sewing machine to low just for this purpose. I tend to move the fabric faster than the sewing machine is going. Once I am in my groove, I will turn the speed back up.