Walking foot problem
 

Hello I’m a newbie!
I am making a 120inch square quilt and am attempting to machine quilt the three layers together. I bought the correct foot for my Janome sewing machine but I’m having problems feeding the fabric through the machine evenly. My stitches are tiny in places despite changing the stitch length.
It feels like there is too much pressure on the foot but I don’t have a pressure foot adjustment on my model of machine.
anyone else have this problem?

My best guess is the weight of your quilt is preventing it from feeding properly. Quilting a quilt that large is challenging, but can be done on a dam, I’ve done it. You will need to have your quilt supported on all sides, without hanging down off your table anywhere. I used extra tables all around my sewing desk, including one beside me on my left to hold up the portion that hadn’t gone through the machine yet.

How does the back look? Do you need to adjust the tension? Have you tried a larger needle? Still, it does sound like a "drag" problem - the weight of the quilt needs support on all sides. I have my machine on a table against a wall, so it puddles into the wall which helps. It's always good to make a test piece - use the same batting between a quilt sandwich similar to the thing you're quilting. That may help you adjust things to work better.

As mentioned-support. Also, put stitch length at about 3. I thought all machines had pressure foot adjustment capability?

Welcome from western NY and happy quilting :)

Silly question...are the feed dogs down?

First, double check that your foot is installed correctly. They can be tricky! Next make a small sandwich, like 6" square and sew to make sure the foot is working.
Having said that, a walking foot is not powerful enough to pull a whole quilt thru your machine. You have to give it lots of help. There should be no drag on the quilt in any direction. The quilt needs to be supported front, back, and left. Extra tables are a great start. If you google 'youtube king size quilt domestic machine', there are lots of videos with suggestions.

Make sure the quilt is supported on all sides and check that your
foot is installed properly. Which Janome do you have? Each
machine is different.

there usually is a bar on the walking foot that must be put on top of the needle shaft bar screw. that helps the foot work correctly. check that.

That is a huge quilt to be running through a domestic sewing machine. It can be done, but I am wondering what batting you used and what model your sewing machine is. Some battings are thinner and lighter, which make pushing the quilt through the arm of the machine easier. Larger arms also make this process easier.

I assume you have installed the walking foot correctly. You can check this by making a little "test" strip of your quilt. Cut a strip of batting, backing and top fabric, baste it as you did the quilt, and then use the walking foot on it. My bet is that this test strip will feed just fine and you will have normal stitches.

If the walking foot is installed correctly, then I am 99.99% certain that the problem you are having is being caused by drag from the quilt. If the quilt is sitting in your lap, the weight of the quilt is enough to produce those small stitches. This is because the feed dogs and walking foot are not strong enough to feed the quilt through from over the edge of your table. This is why you should be lifting up your quilt in front of the presser foot in order to feed the quilt to your machine from above. With a quilt this size, you may also be encountering drag from the sides. You have to make certain, before you sew, that both sides of the quilt are loose enough to not create drag on the feed dogs.

Loosening up the sides and lifting up the front of the quilt will help. You will likely have to stop and do this after every foot or so of stitching.

Ideally, you want to install a system so you can suspend the bulk of your quilt. There are both commercial and homemade systems for doing this. Here are a few links that show you how these suspension systems look. They are usually used for free-motion quilting, but are just as valuable for walking foot quilting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJGph8am6BE
http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.c...ang-it-up.html
https://www.quiltingboard.com/tutori...e-t250308.html
https://www.patsythompsondesigns.com.../archives/5548
http://bryerpatch.com/faq/machinequi...structions.pdf
https://www.quiltingboard.com/main-f...e-t256953.html

Everyone has said everything I could say.

So, I will Welcome to this board. Lots of knowledgeable people on willing to help.

I am the owner of five Janome machines and have used at least four of them to quilt with. Once you have your quilt supported on 3 sides slow down. I learnt on my very first quilt back in 2003 that the faster I went the smaller my stitches got. Don't panic, breathe easy and enjoy seeing your stitches come out how you want them. Happy quilting.

Hi and welcome to the board! Have you done FMQ before or are you straight line quilting? As someone else already stated when you are going to fast your stitches will be very small or even tiny. Do some practice squares until you get comfortable with the technique and you will be fine. Good luck!