A whole morning of frustration with this specific foot.......I couldn't find ANY answers until I found this video!!! Thank you, this was EXACTLY the issue and this was the perfect solution!!!
OMG!!! I KNEW there was a better way and, after many days of frustration, I just sat down and googled presser foot free motion quilting and there this was! My husband just did my modification because I was too afraid to screw it up and I’m quilting with so much more ease. I’m so happy haha!! Thanks Leah, your videos are always solving my problems and moving me forward in my quest to become a real quilter:)
Thank you so much, Leah! I could not break mine as it is made of metal but just learning how to stop that hopping, oh my god, now I can at least see what I am sewing. That hopping was driving me koo-koo.
This is revolutionary. Everyone in the comments has said how I feel, I was sure I was just bad at FMQ, maybe my machine isn't good enough, maybe I'm just doing something wrong.. turns out the culprit was just piss-poor design. You're an engineer and a saint!
Thank you so much, Leah!!! I was pretty discouraged when I tried free motion quilting for the first time. I didn’t feel comfortable going as fast as it appeared I needed to go to create a semi-decent pattern. I modified my foot and it works so great-can’t thank you enough!
OMG. Thank you so much for this presser foot hack. My FMQ is going so much better now without the jumping of the foot. I swear, the difference in my ability to FMQ is night and day between my last quilt and the one I worked on today after modifying the foot. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I modified my foot from way back when you first taught this and have done it this way ever since for all my machines. Works beautifully. The only thing I have changed is instead of using a rubber band, I use very thin hair elastics (the kind that are covered) for now. Rubber bands work just as good, but I broke one too many, and could not find one in the house to replace it for the life of me. I was not about to leave the house just to get rubber bands, so I used a thin hair elastic in its place and it worked! When those wear out and the package is empty, I might switch back, haven't decided yet.
Oh wow! You just saved me with this😍 From among the many problems, I was worrying my sewing machine was making loud noises because of the foot, now it’s quiet😍🎉
Thank you very much. I have a a foot that I could not figure out. It has a adjuster nut where you have rubber band and no lever. This video is perfect.
This is the only darning foot that works with my machine, and I honestly thought I had to get another sewing machine to be able to free motion darn jeans properly. Now I don't have to. Thank you for this amazing hack!
Thank you!!!! What a great help you have been. Visibility was a problem with this foot. I knew others were made with an opening. I came across your video by accident. The elastic suggestion was an added bonus. You are brilliant.
Thank you Thank you!!! for this advice!!!!!!! My machine cannot stitch if the presser foot is not in the down position. The free motion foot was pressing the fabric down and I could not move it freely. With this tip, I will be able to try FMQ now. I was so discouraged and thought I will have to forget about ever doing FMQ or buy a new machine( definitely out of the question).
Thank You! Wow, I’m new and couldn’t figure out why my fabric, wouldn’t move well. I didn’t cut anything but did wrap some rubber bands and it was magical
Wonderful idea! I took it one step further though by cutting off the very top and threading the metal to use a nurled nylon nut on it so I can adjust the depth by just twisting the not. Now I can actually learn to free motion quilt finally without getting frustrated! Thank you again!
The hardest part is threading the rod to accept the nut, maybe I will take a short video to post on here, it is really really easy to change the depth depending on the batting.
Thank you so much, I have that exact foot and have not had good results with it, I will modify as you have shown to use on my E.S sparrow 20, you have been a blessing.
I searched everywhere for an affordable foot that would work on my Vintage Singers. I've used your modified foot on two Featherweights, a 201, a 15, 66, 99, and a vintage 15 clone Kenmore.I paid a fortune for the foot from a local sewing machine repair business. It made the foot usable and opening the tow up made it WAY more agreeable to use. I totally agree with a previous poster. If you could produce a modified foot that functions like this it would be a gold mine. An affordable and FUNCTIONAL quilting foot would be a God-send for me personally. I don't want to spend $100.00 for a vintage quilting foot.
Thank you! I know, it's on my list, but that's a very long list! Most of the vintage Singers are low shank so you definitely shouldn't spend a ton of money on them.
Thanks for this free motion quilting foot hack!! I actually had to add five rubber bands to the top. Even with these modifications, my low shank Brother sewing machine does not hold the quilting foot up high enough for free motion quilting. If I use single thickness of cotton fabric, it's fine. Anything thicker (so forget a quilt sandwich) the quilting foot clamps down on the fabric. Is it my machine? Any suggestions would be awesome. Thanks Leah!!
I modified my spring FMQ foot, bought from my h viking dealer, this way last year. It still didn't behave well. I now use my R floating foot on spring foot setting & it really has been great. I'm tempted to snip it open bc I now have 2. I also have used my Q foot, used for embroidery.
Some machines are really weird and sometimes you have to be really particular about the foot height. I'm glad to hear you found something that worked for you.
Leah, you're a lifesaver!!! I had an open-toe darning foot that already had a U-bend in the bar, so all I had to do was snip off the front of the bar and add elastic bands. Tip: If you want to test this out before permanently breaking it, wrap an elastic around the needle clamp so that the bar of the presser foot rests on the wrapped elastic instead of directly on the needle clamp. Thank you SO much for this - I was debating whether to quit trying FMQ, stick to walking foot quilting, or waste money on an expensive machine when my old machine worked fine for everything except FMQ. It felt like I was playing tug-of-war with the machine and could not form consistent stitches no matter how I adjusted my speed, tension or presser foot pressure. It turned out that the fabric wasn't feeding smoothly because the foot was too low and was hopping on the quilt instead of floating over it.
Uugg! My hopping foot has drove me crazy for years. I'm doing this to my foot. I at least don't need to cut it open as mine already is open. Thanks for this tip!
I tried this and found that it does help with FMQ. Yay! And thank you! After using it, I got tired of having to mess with the rubber bands when using different thicknesses of quilting though. I had some double sided tape that I snipped into a 1/4 inch width then cut off a length that wrapped around the top stem twice (I used tweezers). The end liked to keep unsticking itself so I had to wrap the tape with a small rubber band. This kept the stem up by the pre-cut measurement of 1/4 inch, which was handy to know. This worked well enough that I'm thinking of cutting other strips at varying widths for different quilt thicknesses. An 1/8 inch and maybe an 'un-scant' 1/4 inch (what else does one call a width that's a little over 1/4 inch...? Is there a word for it? lol) Note: Keep the paper backing on both sides of the double sided tape, except for the end as it will eventually get adhesive on the stem and the rubber band.
Thank you for sharing this. I am new to FMQ and was looking for solutions for issues you have raised here, but I still have one question. Could you not simply use a ruler quilting foot instead of the darning type foot that jumps up and down? Many/most of them are made of metal, so you wouldn't be able to see through like the clear one in your video, but it seems that using a ruler FMQ quilting foot would help avoid the bouncing. Thanks.
Yes, in some ways, a ruler foot fixes this whole issue. This video was made long before ruler quilting was an option for home machine quilters. It’s a good option for this style of darning foot, but yes, you won’t need to bother if you have a stationary ruler foot instead
Hello I like your idea about modifying the darning foot. However, I do have a question? Will you ever need the darning foot to go up and down again in future projects or will you keep it the modified way for all future needs?
I personally like a stationary foot and have never needed to have it hop. If you have a really really puffy quilt, the hopping might be helpful. Best advice is to get two feet, modify one, and keep the other one as is! leahday.com/products/darning-foot
To do some free motion sewing, could I use the little button sewing foot (the one that holds the button down and looks like two little ‘crab claws’) because it has an open space for viewing the needle...then lower the feed dogs and leave the arm raised?? Just trying a DIY fix here🥴
Maybe, but keep in mind that foot must be in the down position to have tension on the thread. If that foot is in the down position, unless you can shift it upward somehow at the foot screw, it will probably squish the quilt too much to be able to free motion quilt.
Do you recommend doing this with machines other than the sparrow? I have a Brother and am new to FMQ and am wondering if I should do this. Also, do you recommend adding a rubberband to FMQ feet that are already open toed?
Yes, any machine with this style of darning foot can be modified. And yes, I also do this even to open toe feet. A hovering foot is much easier to use and see what you're doing while free motion quilting with less distraction.
Are these darning feet very model specific? I just bought an old Nelco Deluxe sewing machine that has a darning function switch on the machine and just a regular all purpose foot. I'm excited to try embroidery/darning, but this model is so old I fear I won't be able to find an OEM darning foot.
I have the 30 and can't remember if the FMQ foot was part of the package or it it was included in the "quilting" accessories package I purchased separately. Anyway, my foot is all metal. I'm going to purchase one of these feet and modify it - hope it works!
I got mine modified,it ended up messing up my machine,it bent my needle arm and now my machine is broke,have to buy a whole new machine when I save up,so becareful
This is definitely an "at your own risk" modification! As you can see, I rotate the hand wheel quite a bit to double check the foot is attached properly and nothing is hitting in weird places. You especially need to watch out for ruler feet. Never drop the needle down when the ruler foot is up - that can definitely jam the needle bar badly!
I have a sewing machine model that requires a darning plate when I have the free motion quilting foot on because I dont have the ability to lower my feed dogs. I tried sewing n the lower thread got caught in the darning plate. What did I do wrong? I put the upper thread through the foot hole n I quick set the bobbin thread and went at it. Thanks for your time n expertise in advance
Hmm... You know you don't have to use the darning plate if it's causing you issues. Instead you can just lower the stitch length on your machine to 0.0 or the lowest setting it allows. The feed dogs will still be up, but will move only a small amount, not enough to pull against the quilt.
@@LeahDay thank you for the quick reply. I watched your video again n realized I didnt pull up the lower thread through the fabric. So let me get this straight...I pull up the lower thread and put it along with the upper thread back under the presser foot and hold it aside to make sure it doesn't get caught up? Anyways, I'm gonna try again tommorrow. Thanks again for the reply
I completely agree with you and yes, this is something I'm looking into. But just in case you don't feel like waiting months (or years) for me to manufacture the perfect foot, this one will do!
I suspect that knowing and understanding your sewing machine with make the adventurous modify and adjust no matter what. These kind of videos are great for us more cautious to look into ways of improving our machine!
Jocantral a lot of machines have special free motion feet available. But they can be expensive! Leah has taken a $15 foot and ten minutes of modifications and made FMQ accessible to many more people. 😀👍
Yes that is true - these feet are expensive. I don't happen to have the tools to modify a foot, but this is certainly a good work around for lots of people. Not for my arthritic fingers though. :)
Both of my machines come with the foot and a different foot also it’s called the quilting foot can I use that and it has an open toe foot also does it serves the same purpose with your modifications to this foot? In my manual it is called a darting foot, the other one is called a fmq foot.
Yes, I find this really funny because they are basically the same thing. A darning foot is a FMQ foot. I'd try them both and see how you like them and only modify if you really don't like the hopping movement.
The problem I have with fixed foot darning feet (like your modification or the popular ruler feet) is traveling over thick seams. The foot stops...like there is a wall in front of it. Other than flatten your seams as much as possible, do you have other advice to deal with this situation?
A few things you can do - adjust the foot and test it over the seam rather than over plan fabric sandwich. You can also keep an eye out for seams and be ready for them when you come close. You can also switch to "echo ditching" and avoid the seams completely. That's what I've been doing lately and it's so much faster!
It's an older design, certainly, and many companies have improved on this foot since. But no, for free motion quilting, the foot doesn't need to hop. It's really nice if it's stationary and open so you can see the needle.
A whole morning of frustration with this specific foot.......I couldn't find ANY answers until I found this video!!! Thank you, this was EXACTLY the issue and this was the perfect solution!!!
OMG!!! I KNEW there was a better way and, after many days of frustration, I just sat down and googled presser foot free motion quilting and there this was! My husband just did my modification because I was too afraid to screw it up and I’m quilting with so much more ease. I’m so happy haha!! Thanks Leah, your videos are always solving my problems and moving me forward in my quest to become a real quilter:)
Thanks so much! I modified my foot following your design and it was a game changer for me! I’m still very new to FMQ and it’s helped so much!
Just made this modification to my darning foot. It is a real game changer.
I did this. It works great. Thank you Leah Daye.
Awesome!
Thank you so much, Leah! I could not break mine as it is made of metal but just learning how to stop that hopping, oh my god, now I can at least see what I am sewing. That hopping was driving me koo-koo.
This is revolutionary. Everyone in the comments has said how I feel, I was sure I was just bad at FMQ, maybe my machine isn't good enough, maybe I'm just doing something wrong.. turns out the culprit was just piss-poor design. You're an engineer and a saint!
Thank you so much, Leah!!! I was pretty discouraged when I tried free motion quilting for the first time. I didn’t feel comfortable going as fast as it appeared I needed to go to create a semi-decent pattern. I modified my foot and it works so great-can’t thank you enough!
Wonderful! I'm so happy to hear this!
i guess Im pretty off topic but do anybody know a good place to watch newly released series online ?
@Wallace Lawrence Try flixportal. Just search on google for it =)
@Kingston Douglas Thank you, I signed up and it seems like they got a lot of movies there =) Appreciate it!!
@Wallace Lawrence happy to help xD
Thank you! Excellent workaround!!
You're welcome!
OMG. Thank you so much for this presser foot hack. My FMQ is going so much better now without the jumping of the foot. I swear, the difference in my ability to FMQ is night and day between my last quilt and the one I worked on today after modifying the foot. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
That's great Roxanne! You're super welcome!
Leah Day just saved my quilting life!! So smart! I would have never thought to do that! Game changer indeed!
This is EXACTLY what I was looking for! Thank you so much for sharing this modification.
Wonderful!
I modified my foot from way back when you first taught this and have done it this way ever since for all my machines. Works beautifully. The only thing I have changed is instead of using a rubber band, I use very thin hair elastics (the kind that are covered) for now. Rubber bands work just as good, but I broke one too many, and could not find one in the house to replace it for the life of me. I was not about to leave the house just to get rubber bands, so I used a thin hair elastic in its place and it worked! When those wear out and the package is empty, I might switch back, haven't decided yet.
Yes, I think the Rainbow Loom rubber bands are the exact same thing as hair elastics, just packaged in much greater quantities. Use whatever works!
Leah you are a star!!!! You have fixed my problem and I am so grateful. Thank you!!!!!
Did this years ago when you blogged about it. Works great. Thanks.
Oh wow! You just saved me with this😍 From among the many problems, I was worrying my sewing machine was making loud noises because of the foot, now it’s quiet😍🎉
Thank you very much. I have a a foot that I could not figure out. It has a adjuster nut where you have rubber band and no lever. This video is perfect.
This is the only darning foot that works with my machine, and I honestly thought I had to get another sewing machine to be able to free motion darn jeans properly. Now I don't have to. Thank you for this amazing hack!
Thank you Leah, this worked like a charm!
Thank you!!!! What a great help you have been. Visibility was a problem with this foot. I knew others were made with an opening. I came across your video by accident. The elastic suggestion was an added bonus. You are brilliant.
So happy to help!
Thank you Thank you!!! for this advice!!!!!!! My machine cannot stitch if the presser foot is not in the down position. The free motion foot was pressing the fabric down and I could not move it freely. With this tip, I will be able to try FMQ now. I was so discouraged and thought I will have to forget about ever doing FMQ or buy a new machine( definitely out of the question).
Thank you so much. I've been so mad about the hopping on my free motion feet and had no clue how to fix it
Thank You! Wow, I’m new and couldn’t figure out why my fabric, wouldn’t move well. I didn’t cut anything but did wrap some rubber bands and it was magical
I'm so glad you did this again! I need to do this with my newer machine.
Gotta make it work somehow! I'm so glad you enjoyed this video.
Wonderful information! Thank you very much Leah!
Really good video and advice! Never thought of this but it makes perfect sense and I will try this next time I machine quilt thank you Leah!
WOW...I am amazed at this..will definately give this a try. Thank you so much.
This is exactly what I was looking for! Thank you!!
Wonderful idea! I took it one step further though by cutting off the very top and threading the metal to use a nurled nylon nut on it so I can adjust the depth by just twisting the not. Now I can actually learn to free motion quilt finally without getting frustrated! Thank you again!
A nurled nut??? I must check this out!
The hardest part is threading the rod to accept the nut, maybe I will take a short video to post on here, it is really really easy to change the depth depending on the batting.
Thank you so much, I have that exact foot and have not had good results with it, I will modify as you have shown to use on my E.S sparrow 20, you have been a blessing.
Wonderful! Enjoy!
I am going to try this on my Emerald 116, thank you Leah Day!
I searched everywhere for an affordable foot that would work on my Vintage Singers. I've used your modified foot on two Featherweights, a 201, a 15, 66, 99, and a vintage 15 clone Kenmore.I paid a fortune for the foot from a local sewing machine repair business. It made the foot usable and opening the tow up made it WAY more agreeable to use. I totally agree with a previous poster. If you could produce a modified foot that functions like this it would be a gold mine. An affordable and FUNCTIONAL quilting foot would be a God-send for me personally. I don't want to spend $100.00 for a vintage quilting foot.
Thank you! I know, it's on my list, but that's a very long list! Most of the vintage Singers are low shank so you definitely shouldn't spend a ton of money on them.
Your tutorials are excellent
Thank you Zena! Thank you for watching!
thanks, i have one of those and really needed this
Wonderful!
Thank you for this tip, it's just what I need!
Wonderful! I'm so happy you enjoyed this video!
This is brilliant! Thank you
Thank you!
Thank u, i found out a great little gadget
Thanks for this free motion quilting foot hack!! I actually had to add five rubber bands to the top. Even with these modifications, my low shank Brother sewing machine does not hold the quilting foot up high enough for free motion quilting. If I use single thickness of cotton fabric, it's fine. Anything thicker (so forget a quilt sandwich) the quilting foot clamps down on the fabric. Is it my machine? Any suggestions would be awesome. Thanks Leah!!
I modified my spring FMQ foot, bought from my h viking dealer, this way last year. It still didn't behave well. I now use my R floating foot on spring foot setting & it really has been great. I'm tempted to snip it open bc I now have 2. I also have used my Q foot, used for embroidery.
Some machines are really weird and sometimes you have to be really particular about the foot height. I'm glad to hear you found something that worked for you.
Leah, you're a lifesaver!!! I had an open-toe darning foot that already had a U-bend in the bar, so all I had to do was snip off the front of the bar and add elastic bands.
Tip: If you want to test this out before permanently breaking it, wrap an elastic around the needle clamp so that the bar of the presser foot rests on the wrapped elastic instead of directly on the needle clamp.
Thank you SO much for this - I was debating whether to quit trying FMQ, stick to walking foot quilting, or waste money on an expensive machine when my old machine worked fine for everything except FMQ. It felt like I was playing tug-of-war with the machine and could not form consistent stitches no matter how I adjusted my speed, tension or presser foot pressure. It turned out that the fabric wasn't feeding smoothly because the foot was too low and was hopping on the quilt instead of floating over it.
Uugg! My hopping foot has drove me crazy for years. I'm doing this to my foot. I at least don't need to cut it open as mine already is open. Thanks for this tip!
That's great to hear! Time to stop it from hopping!
I tried this and found that it does help with FMQ. Yay! And thank you!
After using it, I got tired of having to mess with the rubber bands when using different thicknesses of quilting though.
I had some double sided tape that I snipped into a 1/4 inch width then cut off a length that wrapped around the top stem
twice (I used tweezers). The end liked to keep unsticking itself so I had to wrap the tape with a small rubber band. This kept the stem up by the pre-cut measurement of 1/4 inch, which was handy to know.
This worked well enough that I'm thinking of cutting other strips at varying widths for different quilt thicknesses. An 1/8 inch and maybe an 'un-scant' 1/4 inch (what else does one call a width that's a little over 1/4 inch...? Is there a word for it? lol)
Note: Keep the paper backing on both sides of the double sided tape, except for the end as it will eventually get adhesive on the stem and the rubber band.
Thank you for sharing this. I am new to FMQ and was looking for solutions for issues you have raised here, but I still have one question. Could you not simply use a ruler quilting foot instead of the darning type foot that jumps up and down? Many/most of them are made of metal, so you wouldn't be able to see through like the clear one in your video, but it seems that using a ruler FMQ quilting foot would help avoid the bouncing. Thanks.
Yes, in some ways, a ruler foot fixes this whole issue. This video was made long before ruler quilting was an option for home machine quilters. It’s a good option for this style of darning foot, but yes, you won’t need to bother if you have a stationary ruler foot instead
Hello
I like your idea about modifying the darning foot. However, I do have a question? Will you ever need the darning foot to go up and down again in future projects or will you keep it the modified way for all future needs?
I personally like a stationary foot and have never needed to have it hop. If you have a really really puffy quilt, the hopping might be helpful. Best advice is to get two feet, modify one, and keep the other one as is! leahday.com/products/darning-foot
To do some free motion sewing, could I use the little button sewing foot (the one that holds the button down and looks like two little ‘crab claws’) because it has an open space for viewing the needle...then lower the feed dogs and leave the arm raised?? Just trying a DIY fix here🥴
Maybe, but keep in mind that foot must be in the down position to have tension on the thread. If that foot is in the down position, unless you can shift it upward somehow at the foot screw, it will probably squish the quilt too much to be able to free motion quilt.
Do you recommend doing this with machines other than the sparrow? I have a Brother and am new to FMQ and am wondering if I should do this. Also, do you recommend adding a rubberband to FMQ feet that are already open toed?
Yes, any machine with this style of darning foot can be modified. And yes, I also do this even to open toe feet. A hovering foot is much easier to use and see what you're doing while free motion quilting with less distraction.
Can you you that foot also for sewing sewing lace appliques on a dress?
Is this a strait shank? If not can you do a slant shank type? I have a singer 301!
Just run a search online for Singer 301 Feet. You will find plenty of styles of Slant Shank Feet, including darning feet.
Are these darning feet very model specific? I just bought an old Nelco Deluxe sewing machine that has a darning function switch on the machine and just a regular all purpose foot. I'm excited to try embroidery/darning, but this model is so old I fear I won't be able to find an OEM darning foot.
I’m still kinda confused on how I attach the foot to my sewing machine
I have the 30 and can't remember if the FMQ foot was part of the package or it it was included in the "quilting" accessories package I purchased separately. Anyway, my foot is all metal. I'm going to purchase one of these feet and modify it - hope it works!
Yes, I've see the metal version. You'd have to hack it open with a saw! Much easier to change up the plastic version instead.
I got mine modified,it ended up messing up my machine,it bent my needle arm and now my machine is broke,have to buy a whole new machine when I save up,so becareful
This is definitely an "at your own risk" modification! As you can see, I rotate the hand wheel quite a bit to double check the foot is attached properly and nothing is hitting in weird places. You especially need to watch out for ruler feet. Never drop the needle down when the ruler foot is up - that can definitely jam the needle bar badly!
Thank you so much for this video! That bar up top was driving me crazy but wasn’t sure if I should bend it or if I was just installing it wrong.
I'm so happy this helped you! Yes, I've found some feet that aren't so annoying when they hope, but most just need to get bent! LOL!
I have a sewing machine model that requires a darning plate when I have the free motion quilting foot on because I dont have the ability to lower my feed dogs. I tried sewing n the lower thread got caught in the darning plate. What did I do wrong? I put the upper thread through the foot hole n I quick set the bobbin thread and went at it. Thanks for your time n expertise in advance
Hmm... You know you don't have to use the darning plate if it's causing you issues. Instead you can just lower the stitch length on your machine to 0.0 or the lowest setting it allows. The feed dogs will still be up, but will move only a small amount, not enough to pull against the quilt.
@@LeahDay thank you for the quick reply. I watched your video again n realized I didnt pull up the lower thread through the fabric. So let me get this straight...I pull up the lower thread and put it along with the upper thread back under the presser foot and hold it aside to make sure it doesn't get caught up? Anyways, I'm gonna try again tommorrow. Thanks again for the reply
Thank you Leah. But oh my goodness. In this day and age we have to make these modifications? Why are they not designed already for our use.
Yes for sure.
I completely agree with you and yes, this is something I'm looking into. But just in case you don't feel like waiting months (or years) for me to manufacture the perfect foot, this one will do!
I suspect that knowing and understanding your sewing machine with make the adventurous modify and adjust no matter what. These kind of videos are great for us more cautious to look into ways of improving our machine!
Jocantral a lot of machines have special free motion feet available. But they can be expensive! Leah has taken a $15 foot and ten minutes of modifications and made FMQ accessible to many more people. 😀👍
Yes that is true - these feet are expensive. I don't happen to have the tools to modify a foot, but this is certainly a good work around for lots of people. Not for my arthritic fingers though. :)
Have you used this foot with rulers?
Nope, and please don't. You need an actual ruler foot for your machine. A foot like this could pop over or under the ruler.
@@LeahDay ok. Thank you for the advice.
Both of my machines come with the foot and a different foot also it’s called the quilting foot can I use that and it has an open toe foot also does it serves the same purpose with your modifications to this foot? In my manual it is called a darting foot, the other one is called a fmq foot.
Yes, I find this really funny because they are basically the same thing. A darning foot is a FMQ foot. I'd try them both and see how you like them and only modify if you really don't like the hopping movement.
The problem I have with fixed foot darning feet (like your modification or the popular ruler feet) is traveling over thick seams. The foot stops...like there is a wall in front of it. Other than flatten your seams as much as possible, do you have other advice to deal with this situation?
A few things you can do - adjust the foot and test it over the seam rather than over plan fabric sandwich. You can also keep an eye out for seams and be ready for them when you come close. You can also switch to "echo ditching" and avoid the seams completely. That's what I've been doing lately and it's so much faster!
Could you not lessen the pressure on the foot, to keep it from squishing the fabric too much?
Not all machines have that feature. The rubber band works best to get the foot to exactly the right height if your machine doesn't have that dial.
Tfs
You're very welcome!
WHAT??? why do they make it hop if it's not necessary
It's an older design, certainly, and many companies have improved on this foot since. But no, for free motion quilting, the foot doesn't need to hop. It's really nice if it's stationary and open so you can see the needle.
I would never do this to my equipment. I have the exact same foot and use it on my Vikings and it’s perfect. However I do not drop the fed dogs.
Thank you for sharing.
3 thousand dollar sewing machine and i have to put a damn rubber band on it…we all need a partial refund !
Or you can purchase an $75 Convertible Darning Foot from Janome. It's a wonderfully designed foot and doesn't need the rubber band.