Hey it works!!

I've dropped my feeddogs and not had to take my foot off (Mess avoided Rosemary) put the foot pressure really soft and the quilt sandwich is moving smoothly, it's a dream So much easier to control stitch length than with the foot jumping up and down, who'd have thought it.

Stitches look good on top, can't see underneath as it's batting not backing.

For fmq you need to be able to move the fabric forwards & backwards & side to side, I think that you would have a bit of trouble using an ordinary foot doing that, even with reduced pressure. You could try taking your foot off entirely (don't forget to tie a torniquet around the thigh so you don't bleed over every thing ), but you might find that you would then work better with the fabric in a hoop, or at least under a hoop, similar to how the octi-hoops work

PS don't forget to loosen the torniquet for a couple of minutes after every 20 minutes to let some blood flow through, so that the rest of the leg doesn't die off from lack of oxygen, before you replace your foot.

Hi Wendy - You can FMQ with any foot as long as you can move the quilt. The darning foot helps with that by lifting off of the fabric between stitches so that you can move it. You can even FMQ without a foot, but you have to make sure to hold the fabric down so the stitch can be made and watch out for your fingers!!

Nancy

Well I'm still on a borrowed machine that I think would seriously benefit from some of Leah's metal bending. Can't wait to get mine back and get to know it. Should be this week.

I don't see the logic in why thread tension is affected by feed dogs but I'm not a mechanic, I shall experiment.

I was wondering if you can free motion quilt with a normal open toe foot, feed dogs down and foot pressure reduced. I do that for wavy line quilting with walking foot but not tried FMQ

Hi Wendy - I've done FMQ both with the feed dogs up and down. Depending on what I'm doing, I sometimes feel like I have better control with the feed dogs up and touching the back of the quilt. On my machine, I haven't noticed any difference in thread tension either way. Leah has said in previous posts that she leaves the feed dogs up because she has had thread tension issues when they are down. She always quilts with the Supreme Slider over the bed of her machine so even when her feed dogs are up, they don't touch her quilt. Different machines do different things when you drop the feed dogs and when you set the stitch length to 0. You'll have to play around with your machine to see what works best for you. I just wanted to give you more info so that you would know to pay attention to the thread tension when you do different things and so you would know that if might be different if you move to a different machine. It seems that knowing your machine becomes a lot more important as you move to FMQ!

Nancy

Great well done, it really inspires you to get on doesn't it. Did you read on Leah's site that she doesn't drop the feed dogs when FMQ and does terrible things to her foot. I will try not dropping dogs and see what happens.

I had my quilt group inspecting the cutlery for inspiration last night

I've been enjoying the challenge as well. Haven't managed to practice everything, but I have participated in the tutorials and have learnt a lot.. Enjoying trying the techniques on my quilts..

My FMQ has improved out of site, so I will be tuning in for the rest of them and hope to clear all my UFO's in my PHD (projects half done) shortly, so I have time to practice... lol..

That's the stuff Wendy. Why waste a minute when there is inspiration everywhere!

Norma I wasn't being hard on myself I just know that I'm going to get better with practice. Thank you for your kind words and the tips

The shell designs were from a teaspoon I was using. Perhaps I'll start quilting forks. I was at a patient's house this morning and while she was busy in the bathroom I scribbled down a sketch of her wallpaper.

Zarah wrote:
Me too! With the emphasis on 'nearly'!

Thank you ladies for all the kind words.
Wendy, normally I don't make a sketch as detailed as this, but "unfortunately" I liked this one so much that I wanted to make it. I scanned it, then printed out two copies to cut apart and used them to mark the main lines. I used the SewLine chalk pencils, which I love. They wash out easily.
I think you are too hard on yourself. You have done beautiful quilting here and isn't it amazing how we grow when we try these things?

For my part I am nearly where I look forward to get to the quilting. That's new!