When you quilt your quilt do you drop your feed dogs or keep them up as high as you can?

thanks,
Maggie

If you want to do free motion quilting - in other words if you want to be in charge of the direction, then you have to drop the dogs and ideally use a quilting or embroidery foot. (usually a small cirlce or semi circle) although you CAN do this without a foot. (mind your fingers!)

You must remember to put the foot lever down - even if you don't use a foot.

HOWEVER - if you are doing straight line quilting (stitch in the ditch) then dogs up and whatever foot suits your machine....

If you are quiting a very thick piece then you may want to reduce the preasure your foot is exerting down on the dogs (consult your manual to see if your machine does this)

Hope this helps!

yes, very much thank you!

I drop them when Free motion quilting.

free motion quilting. i drop them but happened to take a class and the instructor said not to drop them. so it can be done both ways. may depend on your machine which is best for you.

You have definitely explained that well for me. I am just going to try my own quilting in a bit and this explaination was terrific

Up with the walking foot, down with the FMQ foot. I've forgotten on occasion to lower them when doing FMQ, and the fabric seems to catch rather than move freely. That's my hint to lower them. :) I guess it must vary by machine.

I drop my feed dogs and go to town. I love the feeling of creating my own designs.

Thanks to me reading this I have a really scary scenario playing in my head. <Shutters>

Billy

For FMQ, it really is a matter of personal preference. Some people find they have better control of their stitches with the feed dogs up, but it is more common to do FMQ with the feed dogs down. Experiment and see which works best for you.