Free Motion Quilting Woes -Another Notebook Cover

Sometimes when we are doing free motion quilting it seems that everything goes wrong.  I made another composition notebook cover to practice some free motion quilting. 

Front

Back

 It looks pretty good, but I had serious issues while quilting it.  The top thread kept shredding.  The back is what I quilted first with black thread.  I assumed it was the thread and switched threads in the machine to what I have quilted with last. 
That thread shredded also.  ARRRGH!  I changed the needle, but it was still shredding the thread.  I managed to finish quilting it but I didn't get to do it like I would prefer to do it.

The next day, I tried to figure out what the issue might be.  I completely forgot that when I pulled out this darning foot, that I had modified the Leah Day way, that I saw the rubber band had deteriorated.  I replaced the rubber band.  But,  this rubber band was different.  So I had to take off some of it to raise the foot so that the quilt sandwich could slide easily under it.  I didn't get it right!

Apparently, I had it too high above the surface of the quilt sandwich which can cause some machines to shred the thread. 

I decided to try another foot.  There is this one, that I have used with some success.

But, no, it hops. And it obstructs the view also, because the base is so big. That makes it more difficult to hit the marks you want to hit.

Then there is this one:

 It works, but that base ring is too large also.

Then I saw this one!

The base is small, and the spring is adjustable with the thumbscrew at the top of it.  It is "just right" as Goldilocks once said.
So I made a sample quilt sandwich and tried it out. 

No thread shredding, I did have to adjust the machine tension a bit - but mostly because I had loosened it when I was trying to figure out what was wrong.

I am glad I got it sorted out before I started quilting on the Coins Quilt.   Hopefully this blog post will be a reminder to ME of what works best.  Happy Stitching!


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