Quilting on a “Domestic” Sewing Machine

I love a challenge and people who know me well understand I have a dogged determination when I set my mind to something. The “quilting” part of quilting is a prime example. First, I was told I couldn’t quilt a bed sized quilt on a small (really small and cheap) domestic sewing machine, but I did it.

Then I was told my industrial machine couldn’t be used for free motion quilting. Sure it can! To be honest, it took a lot of tweaking to figure it out, but I did it for years! Here is what helped me:

  1. I practiced by tracing the block I was working on and then putting a clear plastic square over it. I came up with my patterns and drew them with a dry erase marker over and over again. That helped me have a plan as well as giving me some muscle memory.

     
  2. I found high shank quilting feet, bobbin genies to help reduce thread breaks, the Supreme Slider to help move things along. I covered the feed dogs because they can’t be lowered. I set my stitch length to zero, got some Machingers Quilting Gloves and away I went. 
     
  3. I didn’t overdo it. Actually, I should say, I learned to not overdo it. I could FMQ for about an hour. After that I found I made too many mistakes and wasted a lot of time and energy taking out stitching. 
     
  4. Don’t expect perfection. It will drive you crazy. Really, if you keep moving forward your work will improve and you don’t notice small mistakes when you see the big picture. Just like piecing, no one starts out doing things perfectly. Give yourself some grace.
     
  5. I was determined to learn how to adjust the tension on my sewing machine. There was a definite learning curve, but it has been so helpful. I know my machines can be adjusted to have good tension with any thread or fabric.

I really enjoy FMQ (Free Motion Quilting) and I made it work. Even so, there were many times I sent quilt tops to be longarm quilted. Why? Because FMQ takes me a long time and I wanted to move on to other projects. I also piece some BIG quilts and even with my industrial Juki’s huge throat space, they are just too big to finish in a way I would be happy with.

What about you? Is your passion for piecing and not the quilting side of things? Do you have a stack of UFOs that you would love to get done? How about an occasional bed sized quilt you just don’t want to wrestle with to do the final quilting? Mail-in, or call for an appointment to drop off your finished quilt top with backing and I’ll do the quilting for you!