osewme

I just got started to quilt today using free motion & my stitches keep skipping making "long" stitches even though I am moving my fabric slowly. Seems as though the top thread & bobbin are not catching in places leaving big gaps in the stitches. I've never had this problem before. I cleaned my bobbin case area before I started (nothing unusual about that), put in a new needle, lowered my feed dogs & put on my open toe foot & tried a sample. It's terrible. I went back to regular sewing (up feed dogs & regular machine foot and it seems to sew just fine. What do you think is my problem? I'm just at my wits end. I've re-threaded the needle & bobbin several times but nothing seems to help. I need y'alls help on this one.
My machine is a Janome Magnolia 7330.

mkc

Try adjusting your hopper/FMQ foot so it is as close to the fabric surface without dragging.

If it's too high the pull as you move can cause skipped stitches.

Tartan

Make sure the threads are going through the tension disc well, floss if necessary. If you are FMQ batiks, they can be problematic. Perhaps a little thread heaven on the spool of thread may help. Maybe try leaving your feed dogs up and try FMQ that way?

Rhonda K

Try a topstitch 90/14 needle.

Peckish

Did this problem start happening when you changed the needle? Or before that?

Sephie

What kind of FMQ foot are you using: gliding or hopping?
Are you quilting on something different than you usually do such as batik or a different weight of cotton fabric (bedsheet, tshirt, etc)?
Is the batting different than what you normally use?
Different thread than you normally use?

I have a Janome Magnolia 7318 so a similar machine to yours except it's mechanical. I love this machine but it really hates a gliding style foot. Anytime my machine doesn't have enough pressure from the foot, it doesn't like to form stitches correctly so if you're using a gliding one, make sure you have it set low enough? If a hopping foot, make sure it's lowering correctly?

People have mentioned before that they've cleaned out the entire bobbin area and then when they went back and checked again, there was a tiny thread stuck somewhere very difficult to see that was causing the problem? So maybe clean out the bobbin area again, re-thread, and try again?

Watson

Did you solve your problem?

As mentioned, the height of the foot is the first thing I would check. It should just glide across the fabric. Any higher and it will likely skip or break.

Watson

osewme

Well, I worked & worked with it & decided to just do straight line quilting. I'll try to figure out what's wrong on some sample pieces. This quilt I'm making has black backing so I didn't want to have to do a lot of picking out if things go bad with the meandering. Thanks for all the suggestions. About a week ago I did a big sample to make sure I had the right tension & everything & did not have a problem at that time. I'll keep fiddling with it when I finish up this quilt & figure out what's wrong. Thank goodness my machine still sews! I can do without FM quilting but can't do without my machine.