Everyone,
I am quilting fabric for a sewing class tomorrow. I’ve been told to quilt the fabric in diamonds and started stitching this morning following a diagonal line.
The trouble is that the bottom fabric that I carefully ironed and pin basted is moving and I’m getting tucks that need to come out and be sewn again so the fabric looks good from both sides.
I am new to quilting and wondered if there was a solution to this problem? The fabric shifting also happened while I was making my first quilt. Maybe there’s an adjustment on the machine that can help? Yes, I am using a walking foot.
Thanks.
Replies
Aha, I was going to suggest a walking foot but since you are using one alread, I suggest if your machine has a foot pressure adjustment to try adjusting the pressure. If you have no pressure adjustment..maybe try using your hands to slightly separate the fabric on each side of the foot or in front or behind of the foot (which ever way the fabric is bunching) without actually stretching it but just to make it feed through flatly. something tells me you might have already tried this..but good luck to you.
I asked the same question at a quilting workshop. I am going to clean the feed dogs again and hope there's some improvement. Thanks for the suggestions. It may be time for an adjustment.
You might consider placing a quality wax paper strip atop the feed dogs. By quality I mean something other than the "economy" brands often sold in Dollar Stores.
When I've had trouble with fabric feeding through, I place a strip, or strips, of the wax paper and have always had positive results.
Sometimes I've sandwiched it. Other times I used it under the presser foot, or over the feed dogs. Admittedly, I do experiment to see what will bring the result I'm seeking.
One issue, I consider minor, is tearing away the wax paper. On occasion there a bits I need to pick out. But with fine tweezers, or a hemostat, this is readily resolved. Over the years, I have more or less "mastered" the tearing away by doing so in short distances, with fingers close to the thread.
Me
Can you stitch starting from the center and going out towards the sides? You may even try from the center, out about six inches all the way around, then out to 12", and so on, until you reach the outer edge.
You may need to decrease the presser foot preassure, increase stitch length. are you using 30 wt. machine quilting thread? If fabric and batting is cotton, the thread should be too. Be sure you are not using hand quilting thread! Hope this helps! Mary
Edited 4/14/2008 1:39 pm by MaryinColorado
Mary, decreasing the foot pressure was the first thing that came to my mind also but I don't think that the Activa models have a foot pressure adjustment.
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