tension and walking foot

Ok, at the risk of sounding like a complete idiot, how do you KNOW the top tension is too high? I just stick the foot on and go! (but then again I have a 20yr old Singer portable...) L

It's too high when loops of bobbin thread appear on top. OTOH, I once had a serendipitous moment while free-motioning with invisible thread on top: teensy bits of bobbin thread appeared (and didn't clash with the top colors) and from a slight distance looked very like delicate hand quilting. It just happened to work with that particular quilt. Not sure I'd like it that way on every quilt!

And yes, I usually reduce top tension for quilting on my Pfaff. Roberta in D "lisa skeen" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:z3qlf.368$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...

Aha! I didn't know this was "bad", and used it to soften the look of dark thread bu using a lighter bobbin thread on a piece I did recently. :)