Yes vertical bobbins are the best. I do free motion quilting on my Janome 6500 and have for about 10 yrs. It has a horizontal drop in bobbin. I did have my sewing machine bring up the bobbin case as there was too much play. This took care of the lashing. I also have a long arma and when I have lashing it means I need a bobbin genie in the bobbin case. this is usually with slik shiny thread. Maybe you can try this, the bobbin genie. I know many others use it in their sewing machine. there is no reason you can not free motion quilt on a machine that has a drop in bobbin or horizontal bobbin. It might need some adjusting or tweeking. I love the look of the free motion quilting I achieve on my Janome 6500. what I also learned is NOT to drop the feed dogs, just put the setting to quilt and put on a darning foot and off you go. My Janome is a bit of a thread snob and I run aurafil both top and bottom.
Originally Posted by
justducky65
So I read something interesting the other day that might have been an AHA! moment. I've been struggling with FMQing a queen-sized bed quilt on my Viking machine. At times, it seems to catch on the underside and then I am left with some eyelashing, making it frustrating to have to go back and rip that section out.
A few days ago after reading articles about FMQing, I came across an article that said FMQing on a machine with a vertical bobbin feed was better than with a horizontal bobbin feed (such as with my Viking machine). I have not had a chance to try out that theory yet, since I don't have a darning foot for any of my vertical bobbin thread feed machines (although I was also reading on doing FMQing without a foot as well).
My question is - has anyone had experience with noticing if this is true or not. and have you had experience with free motion quilting w/o a darning foot before? Note: I have seen "thread painting" done without a foot before.