Presser foot for machine stippling

Hi,

I just found this newsgroup a few days ago. I'm so happy to find this online resource and look forward to learning and maybe even contributing!

I have been machine assembling quilts for 18 years and ALWAYS stitch in the ditch for the quilting part.

I decided it's time to step out of my comfort zone and try stippling on a tote bag I am making with 2 inch squares.

What kind of presser foot do I need to do this? I vaguely remember maybe it is a darning foot or a walking foot? Maybe they are even the same thing?

I am taking a Moda U class at my LQS (I am guessing that means Local Quilt Shop?) and this is the project for October, to make a tote bag with the 8 fat eighths we received of Allspice Tapestry fabrics.

Thanks for your help!

Karen in Wisconsin

Reply to
Karen
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The darning foot is what you want to use with the feed dogs down. This will let you move the fabric freely. It is a good idea when just starting, to slow down your machine--either by slowing the speed or just pressing down half-way.

Make a "sandwich" to practice on of fabric and batting the same weight as what you'll be quilting. I make them pretty big so I can use them for more than one quilt since I used cottons and the same batting.

Remember, if you "cross" the threads, use it as an opportunity for creativity! Stars are easy to make as are hearts and even writing your name.

Happy quilting!

Reply to
Lenore L

Thank you , Lenore!

Karen

Lenore L wrote:

Reply to
Karen

Welcome aboard, Karen!=20

A darning foot/free motion foot is what you're looking for to do free motion quilting. The walking foot is best for stitch in the ditch as it feeds both the top and bottom fabric layers evenly.

-Irene

Reply to
IMS

Welcome, Karen. Come sit over here by me; I have the M & Ms. As to what kind of presser foot you need, there are lots of answers. Bernina has at least 3. There's the #9 darning foot. It's metal and is almost a circle on the bottom. There's the freehand foot that looks like a horseshoe. There's also the freehand embroidery foot that is sort of a wide oval. Another choice is, I think it's called, the Bigfoot. That's a purple plastic sort of foot. I didn't have much success with that one. They bounce light reflections back in my eyes and are fragile. I killed 3 of them before I decided we just weren't going to play nice together. The plain circle darning foot works best for me. Another fun way to learn stippling is to put a dull old needle in your SM, don't thread anything, drop the feed and practice stitching around on just a sheet of paper. At first it will be like writing with your left hand (or left foot) but after a while you'll find that it is relaxing and/or fun. Now. Tell us about you. Do you have a QI? Polly

Reply to
Polly Esther

Hi Polly,

Ooooo, sewing on paper to practice sounds like a great idea!

Nearly my bedtime so I will post about myself tomorrow, but, what is QI??

Karen

Polly Esther wrote:

Reply to
Karen

Welcome to the group! QI is Quilt Inspector---a pet, a dog or cat, or sometimes another kind of pet. They help you make your quilt and check it out! My dog likes to sit at my feet when I am sewing and watches to make sure I put things together in the correct order. Barbara in FL

Reply to
Bobbie Sews Moore
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Reply to
Patti

Welcome Karen. If you have been quilting for 18 years, I'm sure you will have much to contribute. The step 'beyond' is scary, but very worthwhile - do let us know how you managed the jump! . In message , Karen writes

Reply to
Patti

This is indeed a great tip! And I wonder if soft-ish cardboard, such as a piece of corrugated packing material, might be even better to practice on. Sort of the thickness of a quilt sandwich and might give a better feel for the speed you need to move your hands. Roberta in D

"Patti" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news: snipped-for-privacy@quik.clara.co.uk...

Reply to
Roberta Zollner

Welcome! I do nearly all my quilting on the machine, never would finish otherwise. Stippling is easy and fun, once you have put in a few hours of practice. Remember to breathe and to relax your shoulders. Take a break every half hour or so, or maybe every time you put in a new bobbin. Listen to your favorite music or an audio book. You don't want to focus too much on micro-managing your stipples (or any other free-motion design). Get to where you can do it on auto-pilot.

You need to look at the point where your stitching line should come out, an inch or 2 ahead of the needle, not at the needle itself. When you start to fill in an area, decide where you want to end up and roughly how you plan to get there. The rest is easy.

And BTW, you want some form of darning foot, not the same as a walking foot (which only does more or less straight lines). Roberta in D

"Karen" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:ooOdnaDIwOGY1YDanZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@speakeasy.net...

Reply to
Roberta Zollner

I like your idea of practising with a dull needle and a sheet of paper. Who knows, maybe I'll get the hang of this free motion quilting yet!

- dlm. in central MA

Reply to
- dlm.

Welcome to the group, Karen! I've got peanut and tree nut free chocolates ( milk chocolate mocha truffles! ) to share. Hope that you join us often.

- dlm. in central MA

Reply to
- dlm.

I started out doing free motion using a regular darning foot. Eventually I got hold of a Bigfoot and found that it worked better for me - I could see the fabric better (my darning foot is hard to see through :) ). Maybe my light is at different angle because I didn't notice the reflections that you mention. However (on a bit of a side topic) I did start having lots of trouble with my latest quilting project when my machine started skipping stitches like crazy. After trying everything I could think of I finally switched back to my darning foot and all was better. I figured out that since the thread I was using was thicker than normal (and thus dragging more when pulling through the fabric) that the smaller hole in the darning foot was needed to hold everything in place. All this to say that free motion can be frustrating at times but once you get going it is a lot of fun!

Allison in Montreal (who is going to pass on the wonderful practice paper idea at my next guild meeting!)

Reply to
allisonh

When my SM is skipping stitches, the culprit is usually a blunt needle or the tension on the bobbin case. Sometimes, things just line up wrong and the needle point will become damaged even if it is new. Always check that bobbin case. Hold it over something - your lap will do just fine. If you hold the bobbin thread and the case slides rapidly down to your lap or doesn't slide at all, an adjustment should help. Ah me! it was a great day when I got over "Fear of Bobbin Case Adjustment". Polly

"allisonh"

Reply to
Polly Esther

Allison: What SM do you use? You might have other proprietary options, in case you ever need to replace that Big Foot. I mention this because I've heard several quilters have had some issues with BF, as our Polly has.

Pfilomina Pfaff came equipped with a nice metal darning foot. Later I bought a clear acrylic or plastic (?) Pfaff darning foot with a wider spread which controls things very nicely. I like that best for FM quilting, but use the other for some novelty work ... or just plain darning! (Shh ... don't let on that I occasionally darn.)

PAT >>

Reply to
Pat in Virginia

Yup, I did all that first. And I am guessing that when I go back to using "regular" thread that everything will be fine again with the bigfoot. The site that I found

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for those who are interested) had a checklist of things to look at for fixing skipped stitches. One of which was the size of the hole in the throat plate. Well, at 11 pm on a Friday night I was not about to go shopping for a new throat plate. So I tried changing the presser foot to one with a smaller hole, and lo and behold it worked.(Again - for anyone who is interested - I normally use 50 wt thread and this time was using 40 wt. Not an obvious difference by eye but my machine could tell).Allison

Polly Esther wrote:

Reply to
allisonh

I have a Kenmore Elite. I know its idiosyncrasies and normally it works just fine! Which of course means I go crazy when there is a little glitch and I spend too much time unstitching!!

It's just between you and me :)

Allison in Montreal

Reply to
allisonh

Welcome, Karen! :) As others have no doubt already told you (maybe I should read all the replies before I answer? ), the darning foot is generally what's used for stippling. Stippling is one version of free-motion quilting, and most of us drop the feed dogs to do it; that means that *we* determine the length of the stitches and what direction they go by moving the fabric around under the needle. The machine itself does nothing except form the stitch; it no longer controls how long the stitch is or what direction you are sewing.

The walking foot, OTOH, is used with the feed dogs *up*, as it gives you a second set of feed dogs, but these are on top of the fabric. You see, when you stitch with the feed dogs up, those feed dogs grab the bottom layer of fabric and move it along for you. Sometimes it's very good to have the top layer moving at the same rate, which is what the walking (or even-feed) foot accomplishes. This is most important when doing something like straight-line quilting, either in the ditch or in straight lines anywhere on the quilt sandwich.

HTH! :)

Reply to
Sandy

Welcome aboard to the cyber-quilting bee! Pull up a chair (and chocolate!) Use the darning foot - as others have suggested. (A trial piece is a good way to get the scraps from other projects used up ) Use a fabric pen (or a sharpie) to write down the tension you used - next to the trial stitching, so you'll have a handy reference the next time as to what works (OR what doesn't!!)

Reply to
ME-Judy

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