bemer

I like the meandering- I cross over if I want to, or need to (if I box myself in). The stippling is fun too. I prefer space around the quilting - I like the puffiness reminiscent of hand quilting. And the flowers were fun too. I used paper copies to quilt over, next time I will not use regular paper - it was a real pain removing it because I use larger stitches. These quilts are labors of love, and they are not perfect. But I was please with my work. The best guidance I can give you is be patient. I found that I did better when I slowed down a bit. The top pic was my 1st one , the bottom was next and the middle pic was the last one I did. You'll find what works for you.

Candace

I dug out my 500 again today. I put on the original darning foot and had to mess with it for about 20 mins before it FMQ'ed adequately. I put the pressure to 0(D ) and my tension had to be cranked to 6. The only way I could get a decent stitch was to keep the feed dog plate at normal sewing height, and not raised. This means the feed dogs are up which is no big deal. So, I will revise my opinion from it FMQS terribly to it's o.k.... Still not my favorite in stitch quality and the ease of quilting, but it wasn't as horrible as I remembered. For some reason I think my 500 does a better job than my 401, which really doesn't make sense but there you go.

bemer

Candace, when comparing the 500A straight stitch with my Kenmore Rotary, I much prefer the Kenmore. Do you think the ZZ capability of the 500 is the cause of our poorer quality of FMQ stitching? Maybe after the holidays I will need to see how the Kenmore handles FMQ.

Candace

Bemer, I have many ZZ capable machines that do a great job of FMQing. The problem lies in the design of the 401/500 machines with the plate that raises and lowers and the thread path of the horizontal bobbin assembly. I have FMQ'ed on several different rotary machines and wasn't happy with the results. I've never tried a Kenmore Rotary, however. Maybe you'll have a better outcome.