Using the pressure control to assist in machine quilting

[Betty J.]

One thing I sometimes do if I want to almost free motion quilt but not quite. This would be for using decorative stitching as my quilting stitch for instance, something that doesn't really work in totally free motion, or even for more controlled straight stitching without a walking foot. I lower the pressure control (which is a knob on the side of my Bernina, but even many near antique machines have some kind of pressure control) a couple of notches and reduce the thread tension. This enables me to move the quilt pretty freely under the foot, but still provides some machine control of the stitching. You just have to watch the stitch progression to make sure you aren't moving it too fast. Since the feed dogs remain up, and you control the stitching with your foot pedal, the machine will do a pretty good job of not moving too slowly. Have any of the rest of you tried something like this? Do you have other methods for quilting not often discussed? I used this a lot on my mermaid quilt when I was working the quilting of the shell, for instance.

[Judith R.]

I rarely put the feed dogs down when doing free motion quilting. I find that I have better tension when I do this.