walking foot questions
 

How many of you use a walking foot when doing machine quilting? I was using mine today and was having two problems...1)tension, 2)puckers. My tension was off, top thread too loose, but even when I put it on the highest number it was still not quite right. This is a brand new machine so I would hope that is not the problem, it has not been on any other sewing I have done on it. I wondered if the walking foot could cause any trouble w/tension...although I don't see how. I was going around my blocks to stabilize them before further quilting and by the time I got back around to the beginning of the block I would end up w/a little pucker of fabric. What am I doing wrong? Should I pull the fabric gently, or push? Or just make sure it is flat and smooth the whole time?

Thanks for your help,
Jenna

What machine do you have? And is the walking foot one made especially for your machine? Or a generic one?

It is a Janome JW7630, and the walking foot is not for that machine, it is actually for a Brother I had years ago! It seems to fit fine, but I wondered if that could be the reason for the tension problem.

If the walking foot and machine ate working properly you should not have to push or pull the quilt through the machine, as this will likely distort it and you will get puckers. I wonder if you are supporting the weight of the quilt on the table around you so it is not hanging off with the weight of the quilt pulling against the machine/walking foot? This will also cause problems with uneven feeds or shifting of the layers. Your puckers could also be from the quilt sandwich being loose or not basted firmly enough. I use my walking foot for all my quilting and it should give you a smooth stitch when working properly.

It could be the foot. Even though it seems to fit fine, it may not be "playing nice" with your machine. From what I have seen over the years, many feet are interchangeable among sewing machine brands with the exception of walking feet. Although sometimes you can get by with a generic walking foot, the ones made especially for your machine almost always work a lot better.

I have several wAlking feet but they only work satisfactorily with their matching machine. Ie brother walking foot brother machine.etc
even the generic for an old singer only likes the singer it runs terrible on the other machines especially the bernina when I have put it on by mistake

I had the same problem (puckering and hard to feed through) yesterday using my walking foot to quilt straight lines. I have the foot that came with my machine and wanted to use the quilt guide that can be attached to the walking foot. I'm doing some FMQ between the lines now which seems to be hiding the puckering.

As far as pushing/pulling the fabric: you want to make sure there's no drag on the quilt in any direction. You can, however, try to have a very slight bump of fabric in front of the foot to let the foot do it's work.
I really would advise you to get the correct foot for your machine. Pay the money and get the brand name one, generics are not worth it.

I have a janome and I had to loosen the bobbin tension quite a bit to quilt and get my stitches right. This was right out of the box. It is even worse when I try to FMQ so I bought a second bobbin case for that where the tension is really low and I swap out to FMQ. Once I got the tension right for the walking foot, I found it is fine for piecing, too. Hope this helps.

Play with settings on a small scrap sandwich until you get it right.
Make sure feed dogs are up - Make sure tension on the foot is right. Move upper tension a bit to see how it makes the sewing easier. Make sure there is no drag on the quilt. About all I can think of right now.

I found that generic feet never worked well on my Bernina. I recently bought a new Bernina walking foot on eBay for my older machine and it works perfect. You may have to break down and buy one for you Janome.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I will look into getting a Janome walking foot to see if that resolves my problem. As for the puckers I did have problems w/the backing...I used spray basting and it did not stick! I have the sewing machine on a 6 foot folding table so I think the weight is supported well enough. I think between the wrong foot and
the non stuck layers I just created my own problems!

Thanks again,
Jenna

Jenny at Sew Classic has some good information about buying a walking foot and she takes apart two to show you. She points out that the walking foot must match the feed dogs to do a proper job, lots of photos on there, so just google for "Sew Classic walking foot". It could be that the Brother feed dogs had a different configuration than what you are using now.

Glad to hear you are going to get the walking foot that " belongs" to your machine. I have several different brands of machines and would never think of juggling the feet....anyway, when you get the right foot, loosen your top tension lower than default. On my Viking default is 6 when I put on the WF I lower it to 4, as instructed on the pamphlet that came with the foot......I do the same on other two machines if I use their WF.