Once again I learned something about my sewing machine. My sewing machine is super simple and one of those cheap ones, but never caused any trouble and served me well, so I am happy with it. (knock, knock... knocking on the wood..) When I started sewing, here in the US, three years ago, that was all I could afford. Also, I had no idea we will become such close friends.
I've been tempted to try free motion quilting for some time, but thought that it won't be possible with my simple machine. However,I can't afford much more at the time,so I figured I better make it work.
I bought a darning foot, and searched for the quilting table (almost costing as much as my sewing machine). I asked you for the suggestions and search for even more info online (tutorials). I learned that my machine does not allow me to lower the feed dogs, which is ok since I could cover them with darning plate (I believe that is what they call it).
Well, after all this, I couldn't wait any longer, found some scraps and tried it. Please, don't laugh, but here are my first pieces.
Here comes another question for you. I think I can practice more and work on smoother lines, but my bottom looks terible. I know it is a tension problem. It works fine on the regular sewing. Do I lower the tension, or what do I do to make the bottom to look pretty?
4 comments:
For your first time, it looks fantastic. One thing that I find that helps me is I run the foot pedal med-fast, and my hands a little slower - if you look at Crazy Mom Quilts, she has a tutorial on free motion quilting that will give you an idea. But I find if I run the foot pedal faster than my hands, a lot of the jerkiness smoothes out. It does look like your bobbin tension is off - there should be a little screw somewhere on your bobbin case - play around with tightening and loosening it - but it doesn't take much to make a big difference. I have to tighten the screw up in mine every few weeks or so - maybe because it's an older machine (12 years old I think). Good luck! Email me if you need more help.
Kris
Sometimes, just making sure your needle is brand new helps eliminate the loopies underneath. I usually loosen the top thread tension too when doing free motion.
I'm so glad I stopprd by your blog. This is something I've been wanting tl learn more about!
Looks like you have a great start!
Great first try...to help those loops on the bottom, tighten that top tension way up...to 7 or 8.
Practice makes perfect...look forward to seeing more :o)
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