Machine quilting

Good gracious alive, Edna Pearl. =) so many questions. FIRST !! atta girl. Good for you. Go for it. Now. moving on. It seems to me that you are stitching on a Necchi and I don't know diddly about them. On most SMs somewhere there's a screw or button that will loosen up the pressure that the foot is applying to your quilt. Sometimes on older ones, it is located directly above the needle right on Top of the SM. Yes. Cough up the $s to get a real quilting / darning foot. Yes. 'Needle down' is marvelous; you would enjoy a newer machine but lots of folks here happily succeed without it. No. A 1970 machine does not qualify as an antique; you'll have to go back about a hundred years to compete. So tickled to see that you're learning MQ. We've had to drag some of our beloved group kicking and screaming, not to mention holding their breath and turning blue. Most made it. Assemble yourself some comfortable practice pieces. Sort of placemat size is good. And, you didn't ask, but always, always remember to put the foot down. You can't tell that it is just by looking but you can make one whale of a mess if you forget. Trust me. Polly

"Edna Pearl" I am trying my hand at machine-quilting and am fairly clueless about it.

Edna...I'm still a beginner, too, but it does get easier with time.

Darning feet hop "up" when the needle goes up, making it easier to move your fabric, but you don't need one, and you don't need an expensive new machine to free-motion quilt. One of the best free-motion quilters I know uses a treadle, usually with a regular foot, and sometimes without even dropping the feed dogs!

Is it possible for you to lighten up on the presser foot pressure? A lot of the older (and vintage, and antique, as you go back in time!) had adjustable presser foot pressure. If you loosen it about as much as it can be loosened without falling out, your regular foot will work just wonderfully for free motion quilting.

Check your local library for the Hargrave book on quilting...."Heirloom Quilting" I think it's called. (Somebody please correct me if I've got that totally wrong!) She has some excellent exercises to get you used to the motions you make to do free motion quilting.

Other than that, it's "practice, practice, practice!" Just layer some squares of a handy size, and go for it! If your practice pieces have to be "useful," bind them afterwards and they become potholders.

After lots and lots of potholders, you'll wonder how you ever had so much trouble at the beginning!

Dragonfly (Pam)

LOL. Thanks, Pam. Needed a laugh. I reckon loosening the pressure until the foot falls out would indeed present a problem. Polly

"Dragonfly" Edna...I'm still a beginner, too, but it does get easier with time.

You've had some great answers EP. I am not an expert - and I am one of those Polly mentioned who had to be forced 'kicking and screaming' to try it (I was doing all mine painstakingly with my walking foot!!). I discovered quite recently that it was something *I* was doing that made the pushing harder: I am not a relaxed person >g< and I was trying really hard with my quilting one day, which was becoming harder and harder to do. I discovered that my hands/fingers were nearly white with how hard I was pressing. So, of course, the quilt wouldn't move easily. So, just check periodically to see if you are pressing hard onto the machine table. You can also polish your machine table to make it more slippery (but polish off *all* polish). Also: I tried to do what the books show in their pictures, and have your hands spread evenly and delicately on the quilt surface. I have found that I do better 'grasping' a chunk of the quilt at each side of the needle. This means that I can do my 'tense' bit by holding on tightly, but I'm not pressing down. I don't do either for very long at a time - I do switch from one to the other - longer with the 'chunk clutching'.

As to the needle down: when you feel you are going to have to change hand position, just watch the needle, feel the rhythm and 'catch' it down when you lift your foot. It isn't as hard as most of the things you are mastering!

As to your reassurance: When I last heard, Paula Nadelstern (who does wonderful work) did her quilt-making with an antique Featherweight, on her kitchen table. I expect she has changed, now that she is famous; but that was how her early work was done. . In message , Edna Pearl writes

You've had excellent advice already. I'd add: Don't look so much at the needle, and more at the point where you want your next few inches of stitching to end up. It's just like driving a car, you turn the wheel toward whatever direction you're looking. Also: You have a feel for how fast the fabric moves through the machine, depending on how much you push the pedal, right? Try to transfer that feeling to the speed of your hands moving the fabric, and you'll achieve more even stitches.

I have machines older than yours that can quilt just fine, but yes, we do love our needle-down button! If you support the weight of your quilt, and no part of it has to hang over the edge of anything, you might safely stop, needle up, and change your hands without losing control.

30 hours of practice! You're nearly there already! Roberta >I am trying my hand at machine-quilting and am fairly clueless about it. >

Along with all the other advice given here, look up my website on "stippling:"

Edna Pearl wrote:

I just spent 6 1/2 weeks in Lizard Land and made several quilts wile there on my "Old Lady" sewing machine which I got in the late 1970's. NO needle down and not even a snap on foot option! All the quilts were free motion quilted, too so it CAN be done and wit little difficulty, too :-). When I first started doing free motion on this machine (about 20 years ago), I did like you and used my zig-zag foot, dropped the feed dogs AND loosened the pressure on the presser foot. Then I started watching quilting shows on the telly and started getting the Clotilde catalogue and discovered the clear darning & spring embroidery foot for low shank machines. I bought one immediately (currently on sale for $7.98 in my catalog) and found this made it even easier to manipulate the quilt. I'm not sure if this would fit your machine and it's NOT snap on but it works wonderfully. I don't see the necessity for a $30 foot unless you particularly like that foot. Look in the Clotilde cataloguer (

) and check out what is available. There is also an open toe appliqué & embroidery foot that is more like a zig zag foot but is made of clear plastic and available in a snap on type for $9.98. I've often toyed with the idea of getting the Big Foot because it is clear AND about 1" wide but it's also about $27.00. I can't justify spending the money when I am doing fine with the darning & embroidery foot. I usually just spend the $$ on something else. Lastly I will remind you to "sew fast but move slow". I think that's what one of the TV sewing craft show ladies used to always say. Meaning make sure the needle is going faster and you're moving the fabric slowly. Take frequent breaks and RELAX :-). I'm certainly no expert but I've been doing free motion quilting for a long time and I STILL forget this! Good luck and keep us posted on your progress, OK? CiaoMeow >^;;^<

PAX, Tia Mary >^;;^< (RCTQ Queen of Kitties) Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about their whiskers! Visit my Photo albums at

Amazing answers. You all are the BEST. I do try to "look at the road instead of the steering wheel," by looking at the markings for the stitches I'm about to make instead of the needle and foot. I also forgot to mention that I did loosen the "darner" button to lessen the pressure on the foot, and I didn't describe the problem very well in general -- it's like the quilt package bunches up around the corners of the foot as I move. I think your tips about hand position and thinking slowly, as well as my learning how to control my foot on the treadle (and not to lose patience and stomp on the pedal), are going to help a lot.

I found one book last night that described the darning foot as having a "lighter touch" than other presser feet, in that it has no corners and less metal touching the fabric. That makes sense to me. Nobody mentioned that the darner foot bobbles a little -- thanks for that, Pam. I think I can learn to accommodate this mentally and with practice.

I still can't find a snap-on darning foot (the low-shank feet won't fit my SM), but I've located a local SM and SM repair shop that carries a lot of feet and gizmos and some notions, so I'll go see them soon. (The shop is even in biking distance! It's just such a tiny place I didn't notice it until my SM pointed it out while it was closed and I got out of the car and peered in the shop window.)

I've been using a package of scrap batting and fabric for my initial experiments in machine-quilting (as well as testing Krylon spray glue, seems to work fine for spray-basting -- so far). My next machine-quilting will be to do some straight stitching on a Amish-style 24" by 24" block that I started and finished yesterday. (I am so proud of myself about the improved ease and speed I am developing with making triangles and borders!)

If anybody likes Amish patchwork and quilting, you might love this book as much as I do: "Making Welsh Quilts: The Tradition that Inspired the Amish?" by M. Jenkins and C. Claridge -- $6.95 at HamiltonBook.com

or . It is FULL of beautiful designs for small projects like the one I made yesterday. I am also inspired to learn machine-quilting by "Amish Patterns for Machine Quilting" by Pat Holley and Sue Nichols -- another $6.95 sale at HamiltonBook.com. Thanks for whoever posted about Hamilton a few weeks ago -- I got some really fun books! There was else somebody I wanted to thank for something specifically but I don't remember who it is now, so just assume it's you :-)

Edna Pearl

I have a 1987 Pfaff 1471 SM that I love. It has buttons to change the stitches and has a "needle down" button. I love this feature. It also has a "tie off" button to use when sewing on buttons. I bought it new and got "everything" there was to get with it, meaning all the different instruction books to be able to do whatever I wanted to do with the machine. Original price was $2000 on sale. Today, it sells on e-bay for less than $400. I also just bought a newer Pfaff from a friend that embroiders pictures all by itself! I guess what I am saying is that some of the older high end SMs can be bought at a pretty reasonable price and they have more wonderful features than you can shake a stick at! Barbara in SC

We all start somewhere, Edna P! :)

Yes, a darning foot is designed to sit higher than a regular presser foot, which "presses", as its name indicates. In addition, most darning feet have a spring that allows the foot to bounce a bit and not smash the fabric, creating drag.

Yes. However, I wonder if you can't find some sort of generic darning foot that will fit your machine? I know my DT found one for her Husqvarna, which is about 35+ years old.

The Supreme Slider, no matter where you order it, is definitely wonderful, IMHO.

Don't forget about MQ, but you will have to make some adjustments, if you want success.

I don't blame you for getting tired of doing it manually, but people have done so for decades, before needle-down became so commonplace.

Absolutely! I'm going to teach a beginner class on Friday, and I already expect that they will go through some frustration. Just remember that your mantra will have to be "practice, practice, practice"!

I'm very lucky that I was able to buy a new sewing machine just a few years ago, but I also know that some people here are doing free-motion machine quilting on ancient Singers dating from the '40's and '50's, if not earlier. Good luck! :)

Most darning feet also have a little "arm" that goes over the needle screw in order to help the foot "bounce" a bit. That's probably why you can't find a snap-on foot. However, I suspect that you can remove the shank of your feet -- the part that the regular feet snap onto -- and put on a generic darning foot. I know I could do that when I had an ancient Viking (dating from 1972) back in the mid-'80's.

Isn't the quilting amazing? The sample I pieced is the red, black, and grey one on the cover. The authors actually *machine*-quilted it. It is fantastically detailed, though simple enough if one has the drafting and SM skills, I suppose. I've decided to simplify it way down, to halve the number of straight lines, simplify the center circle, and maybe try some birch leaves on the outside border by hand if I can't machine them (without all the embellishments around the birch leaves shown in the quilting plan).

EP

Edna,

Would you please contact me via e-mail? countryone77 at yahoo dot com

Thanks,

Done.

Good point below!!!!

I had horrible luck trying to get sort-of-even free motion stitches until I went like-a-bat-out-of-hell around the outside edge of the small quilt I was making, about four times around as quick as I could go without the sulky thread breaking. I got a "feel" for how fast the fabric moves at that "pitch" of the motor on the machine I was using. When I went back to free-motion, that "feel" transferred over and I just moved it as fast as the feed dogs had at that same pitch.

so...try it!

Dragonfly (Pam)