twiglet wrote: If you have your work in a hoop, then it is safer to remove the presser foot, because you are holding the hoop to move the fabric around - that is how I was taught free-motion embroidery. But you still need to remember to lower the presser foot to engage the tension plates.
If you have a normal foot, feed dogs down (or zero) and take the presser foot to lowest pressure, you can fmq without the hoop if you want to - it is all a case of experimenting with different combinations to see what works....

But if you use a hoop, normal foot, feed dogs down and take the pressed foot to lowest pressure then fmq would that work?

Reetzbobeetz wrote:
I thought the same thing, but if you do that be very, very careful of the fingers. Somehow that pressor foot reminds you that there is a very powerful needle pumping up and down at a very rapid speed that has the power to penetrate fingers. (As Ricky would say) Just sayin'.

Heather.. on most machines ...you can loosen the presser foot pressure to zero then put the
foot down in the regular way. The thread then is in the tension disks and should sew ok.
Remember to put the feed dogs down, too. Worth a try on a sample scrap....I've done
the trick with no foot at all and it worked...just watch out for the fingers !

Reetzbobeetz wrote:
The purpose of using a darning foot (which does not hold the fabric against the feed dogs) is to prevent the fabric from riding up with the needle to prepare for the next stitch. Without the foot, you would have to keep your fingers closer to the needle to prevent it from doing that. I'm too much of a klutz to have my fingers that close to the needle!!

Hurray, hurray, hurray!

I know that with some of the older machine you could actually take the foot off and FMQ that way, but mine won't let me do it. Worth a try?

Three cheers for Superglue!

loise98 wrote:
no replacement yet, but super glue is holding it for now

Heather, Sorry for your difficulties, but just as the rest have said, it doesn't only happen to newbies! And besides that, it was just good to hear about how the work on the comic quilt is coming along. Keep at it. I am so, so sorry to hear about your FMQ foot to have gotten broken. Hope you get a replacement real soon. BTW when the pressor foot is in the up position the tension disks are not engaged. That, I believe, is standard in all machines. Good luck.

Reetzbobeetz wrote:
dare I admit it was the excess backing that hangs off? the edges are pinned, but that excess (you know, 4" extra all way around.....) folded over, bunched back to the quilt itself and got caught in the edge when I got there. Luckily was easy(ish) to fix......or small enough to decide that it will likely be cut away when I square up the quilt in the end! LOL!!

lotti wrote: Me too!!! "Bunchy-ickness" definitely needs to be added to the Webster's Standard Quilting Dictionary!

Yup, heather, you are definitely not alone... And I love the term 'bunchy-ickiness', I've managed quite a lot of that too!

And Heather the reassuring thing is that you don't need to be a newby to do any of those things! I managed to get a great fold into the back of a small Christmas quilt I was making this last Christmas and with so much FMQ work on it there is no way I am unpicking it. So it got thrown into the pile that will become cat blankets. But such is life. I suggest that you pin, with safety pins, around the very outside of your quilt to stop the edges from trying to sneak back under.