Hey everybody, it’s Rob. Welcome back to Man Sewing. Again, I hope you had a fantastic week without
me but I’m certainly glad you’re joining in. Today I want to play with some fun basic tips
on free motion machine quilting. And of course we’re getting very excited
out there. A lot of us are diving deep into the world
of our own free motion machine quilting. It’s one of the reasons I started quilting. But let’s talk a little bit about some of
the differences real quick, right? So a lot of folks are treating themselves
to those fantastic long-arms or like I have in my home studio, a nice sit down like a
16 to 18 inch. We call those the sit down mid-arms a lot
of time. But I want to show you how to do a lot of
this set up on your standard little domestic sewing machine here. So this is a Baby Lock Melody. And it’s very similar to a lot of entry
level machines let’s say. So there’s a few key features if you have. We like to go ahead and drop our feed dogs
on the machine. So a lot of these machines have the feed dogs
drop on the back end. So I drop my feed dogs personally and that
keeps them from kind of feeling on the fabric. Or you could set your stitch length to zero. I’m going to also put one of these kinds
of extension tables. This is almost a must for me. And the reason I say that is when we approach
our machine we want to be able to have both of our hands kind of comfortably here at roughly
a 90 degree angle. You’ll have to forgive me a little bit,
I’m standing obviously on the set here while I do this. At home of course, I’m seated. But this is actually a pretty good position
for me with this sewing machine. As I stand here though and my hands kind of
fit in, I notice that I can’t visually see the needle real well. So a lot of times I will push the machine
back from my body a little ways or right now today, I’m just going to step back because
I want to be able to see what the needle’s doing even though I’m not watching each
and every stitch. Now I’ve got a couple of quick tips out
there that will give you more information on my needle choices and the different free
motion feet. But let’s start with putting on the free
motion foot from Baby Lock. Always use the one that comes from your manufacturer
when possible. This is considered a standard hopping foot
so it’s spring loaded like you see here. And one of my tricks is as I come around,
I’ve already removed my standard presser foot. And as I come around here, I’m going to
push down on the spring to try to bring the shank holder onto the screw on the presser
foot bar. A lot of technical terms, sorry about that. And then the other thing I was looking for,
there’s a little wire feature that comes above the foot. And that’s going to actually ride on the
spring. So as my needle goes up and down, that spring
is controlled by the movement of the needle actually. So it goes up and over the needle bar. Some of us struggle putting that on location
or putting it into the machine. So my trick is, is once I start wrestling
with it, I’ll lower my needle slightly so that I can get the spring up and over that
needle screw itself. It’s always a good idea to check to make
sure that you’re needle is in nice and tight because there’s going to be a lot of vibration
on that needle screw. As well as your presser foot is also on tight
because if it falls off while you’re stitching, you will probably not get the best results. And you might even say some negative words,
so. But anyways, just be careful with that. Those are tightened in. And then I’m also using right now, a sharpes
70. For you beginners, I’m going to recommend
the sharpes 80. It’s just a little bit larger needle. And that will keep you from some thread shredding
if your body mechanics aren’t perfect at the beginning, right? But I also love the jeans/denim needles because
they both feature a fairly small eye and a nice sharp tip to deliver the needle through
the quilt, nice and fast. Now there’s a bazillion, which is a combination
between a billion and a million, apparently. So bazillion. Different kinds of accessories out there. There’s only a few that I really, truly
use. I like some sort of a teflon mat. My favorite is the Sew Slip mat. And this will normally cover the bed of the
machine so it turns the bed of the machine into like an ice skating rink. So the fabric has no drag and flows nice and
smooth. One of the things you’re challenged with
is fatigue. So if you approach your machine, and your
shoulders go up like this, you’re going to cramp up in your neck pretty quickly. And or if you have a lot of drag on your machine,
you’re going to start to wear out in your forearms. Or if you’re squeezing real tight on your
quilt, you also might start to tighten up your forearms. Once your body fatigues, your motions are
going to get choppy and your stitch quality will probably drop. So I say you can quilt as long as you’re
not fatigued. Some of us fatigue during our warm up and
we never get into our real quilting process, right? So having that slider mat on there will help
you eliminate friction. And then I also always wear these Machingers
gloves. So the Machingers gloves is a nice lightweight
glove but it’s got a rubberized tip. Grabbery gloves are also wonderful. I like those as well. I apologize, I won’t be putting them on
today because I left mine at home. And these small/mediums are not fitting the
Man Sewing hands today. So we’re just going to set those aside. So that is also my excuse, right? If my stitching doesn’t go well while we’re
doing live filming today I’m just going to blame it on not having my accessories. How does that sound? That’s my casual disclaimer there as we
get started now. So the next thing we want to talk about, a
little bit, is I’ve just taken and made myself a practice sandwich. Now the fun thing about a practice sandwich
like this, you can see I’ve even tested my machine already before we started rolling
cameras today. Is something like this gives me quadrants. A lot of us as we approach our machine quilting
we kind of freak out, like Oh my gosh, what am I going to do all over the quilt. Well my dear friend Angela Walters taught
me early on, Hey just look at it one piece at a time. And just practice in each little area as you
go. So I love making practice sandwiches that
have a little bit of patchwork in them. So that I can focus on one specific area. So I planned to give you a couple of different
practice motifs after I explain a little bit about what we’re doing here. So I have also basted this quilt with my safety
pins. I usually just use the curved safety pins
because it’s nice and easy. And normally you would have a safety pin about
this distance apart but I’ve already been able to remove it from the center because
I have this basted down now with the actual free motion machine quilting On the back,
fabric. In the middle, batting. On the top, your quilt or your practice piece. And I cannot tell you how important it is
to always warm up and always practice before you put your real quilt underneath the machine. It’s just no fun to tear out a free motion
machine quilting stitches, right?. I’ve got the Sew Slip mat installed for
you already but let me tell you what I’ve done. I’ve pulled the paper off of the back. And it has a silicone on the back and a teflon
topper. And of course all the mats work the same way. This is just one I happen to enjoy using. And it has a single little hole cut out of
it that’s a little bit smaller than a dime and that’s going to go through the opening
on the stitch plate and when you drop your needle, you want to make sure your needle
is going to go into the center of that hole or near the center of that hole as you go. So let’s go ahead and bring our sandwich
in. And one of the first questions I often get
asked is how do we start? What do we do with our bobbin thread? So I’m going to push this over here. And if you have a needle up, needle down feature
on your sewing machine, it’s one of the easiest ways to get a stitch, a single stitch
I should say. And I’m also going to go ahead and try to
line this up right in the seam allowance or somewhere where it’s fairly invisible to
see to start with . So I”m dropping my needle. And I’m picking it back up. And I’m going to take my needle’s thread,
and I’m going to literally floss underneath the presser foot and bring that bobbin thread
right up as well. I have two different colors of thread in the
machine. This is a practice sample. One of the best ways to see how your tension
is functioning, hopefully very well. Is to run two different colors of thread. So that you can see where the pull is happening
so that you can adjust your top tension accordingly. So let me tell you what that means. If I see the dark blue from my bobbin, on
the top of the quilt, my top tension is too tight, generally. Or the bobbin is not in tension at all. But generally it’s the top tension so I’m
going to loosen it to allow that loop to form in the batting again. If I’m seeing specks on the back of quilt
of the top thread, then my top tension was too loose. If I’ve got a caterpillar being born on
the back of the quilt, big long loops you could run your finger through, there was no
tension on your thread. So there’s a difference between poor tension
and no tension. And I’m sure unfortunately we’ve all seen
both sides of that coin. So I have both of my threads now up on the
top of my quilt. I’m going to take a few stitches to lock
it in. Actually I’m going to put my presser foot
back down and take a few stitches to lock it in. And then I’m going to begin sewing. My first practice motif for you is to learn
circles. A lot of folks are very terrified of circles
but circles are the end and beginning of all of your curves. Now my first quilting teacher was Mr. Miyagi. Remember, quilt on, quilt off kind of thing. So with that, I’m going to show a big circle,
little circle drill to get both of my hands working correctly so that I can spin my curves
in any direction at any time, let’s hope. Here we go. So I’m going to bring the fabric towards
me. And I’m going to begin stitching a couple
stitches away. And I’m going to go into like a little circle
and then I’m going to come out here and do a bigger circle. Back into a little circle. And a big circle. And this is a really good practice motif to
kind of, like I said, get used to your circles. But there’s another thing that can really
happen in this. Some machines have a tendency to drop stitches
or skip stitches more than others. Some of us have to take responsibility for
that ourselves as well. When the needle drops, actually when the needle
drops, the hook passes behind and forms, helps form the stitch. When we’re free motion machine quilting
we can be bending that needle around, therefore, if we pull the needle out of the way, we could
skip a stitch. And if we push the needle into the way we
could break thread or break a needle. So when I’m doing my circles, if I’m having
problems especially at the bottom end of my circle on almost all machines, I am probably
pulling the quilt too hard. I’m not driving the Auto Bahn correctly
and spinning out of those curves kinds of things. So if you’re doing circles and you see the
same problem over and over, the same, think of it like a clock. Maybe between four o’clock and seven o’clock,
it’s probably that you’re pulling the quilt a little faster than the machine really
wants to go. I hope that makes a little bit of sense for
you. So that’s why I like this drill so much. But then as you get good at circles, you can
actually start getting into a pebbles or a circle motif. The pebbles or the circle motif is really
fun but the key to this, and this is a great filler by the way. The key to the circle or the key to the pebble
motif is always complete 360 degrees of your circle. So yes, you will be stitching over the top
of thread that you had already laid down before. I’m just going to spend a moment and do
some circles. Watch along if you can. I’ll try to keep my shoulder out of the
way here. One of the things that happens a lot of the
times is you’ll work yourself into or paint yourself into a corner, you are more than
welcome to rotate your quilt as long as your needle is not moving. So watch. If I wanted to spin this to get a little different
angle so I could see where I’m going, I’m happy to rotate the quilt but the machine
was not moving while I did that. And one of the other fun things once you get
your circles dialed in or even better if you’re struggling getting those rounded shape circles,
cobblestones and circles are both very wonderful fillers. But they look a little different. So cobblestones are going to be rectangles
and triangles. Think about a fireplace. So you can take your circle motif and then
the key is just make some more oblonger shapes. But my brain is stuck on circles right now. But you still want to fill in that gap. You can see how I just followed myself back
around so I can get myself out of that corner I was painted into again. So again, with these filler stitches, it’s
really functional and gives you a lot of freedom to get away from where you don’t want to
be or get you where you want to be. Now the fun thing about circles over time
is a lot of us achieve or strive to achieve things like feathers and cool swirls and swoops. So once my arms got used to doing that circular
motion then what I personally like to do is, let’s say I’ll just come out and just
set a curve and then I kind of play with it. So come in nice and close, you’re going
to see what I define as consistency. That’s right. If you look nice and close you’re going
to see my stitches are almost all different lengths, and therefore that defines the consistency. Of course, they’re all supposed to be the
same length. And this stitch length right here is nice
because you can see the quilting. Short, short stitches tend to bring your bobbin
thread to the top. Big long stitches tend to get really chunky
or blocky. Think of it this way, a circle with only four
stitch points, is a square. So no, you don’t have to put 360 stitches
in every circle but the more stitches, the more round it looks. So here were our circles down in here. Starting with the small circle to big circle
. Then I was playing with the cobble, so a little bit more oblong shapes and things,
still filling in the area in between. And you can see where I’ve been able to
travel in and out of my stitching. And then here I was just playing with those
swirls and playing with the hoops and loops and things. And then into my scallops which I also find
are a nice filler. So reminder, the circle is important because
it builds your hand control. But it also shows you if you’re having odd
spots between you and your machine. Once you can do circles, you can curve in
any direction and that’s why I like you to do big smirkle, circle, small circle drills
so that you start to control your brain. What happens to me sometimes is I’m thinking,
Gosh I certainly, I’m getting stuck. And sometimes when I get stuck I just keep
the machine going and it’s like circling with a big red marker like: He didn’t know
what to do right here. He didn’t know what to do right here. So if you’re getting stuck, just stop and
replan. And that’s a nice reason to be working in
different sections. So you want to see another quick drill here? Ok, so for our next motif we’re going to
do some straight line stitching. And what we want to do with the straight line
stitching is try to do no more than about two stitch point at each change of direction. So I’d be going straight, stitch, stitch,
the next direction. These make cool fillers as well. Kind of Aztec looking maybe. One of the keys I like to do is not to make
all of them the same size so sometimes big long runs. Sometimes short little runs. Kind of changing directions as I go. That works a really nice motif, let me show
you what that looks like, ok? So there’s a version of some of those straight
line stitches and that’s just nice easy stitching but changing direction. But let’s talk a little bit more about our
stitch consistency, right? See these stitches here, those are a little
long for my taste. How did that happen? Big stitches come from a slow moving machine
and fast moving hands, right? I’m jumping too quickly between my stitches. Conversely small stitches come from a machine
that’s going really, really fast and I’m just barely moving my hands, kind of like
you saw in the circles. So big stitches and small stitches come from
your rhythm with the machine. And one of my tricks usually is headphones
so I’m feeling the vibration in the machine and I’ve got something else setting my pace,
some nice music going on in my head. And of course something that I like to listen
to. So meandering is where a lot of us start. Meandering can be pretty easy but a lot of
folks kind of get stuck in that puzzle piece mode. And I’ve heard a lot of wonderful educators
describe how to work through that mode, one of the easiest, I thought was really neat
was kind of looking at like heart shapes, half hearts as you go around and then you’re
changing direction again. So let me see if I can do that for you real
quick. I’m going to do these a little bit larger
than you normally would want to do them. And then once I’ve set a few in, I just
kind of play with those with those as I go. And I am so happy right now because I am starting
to show some tension issues. I kind of felt my needle snag earlier and
I didn’t take the time to check what was going on in the bobbin. So I’m going to be able to show you some
really nice tension problems here in a second. Just what you all hoped for, right? Ok, now let’s stop, finish our motifs for
the day and talk one more troubleshooting issue as well. And I think we’ve all been told this a million
times but now you’re going to see it live. Whenever you have a poor stitch situation
or a thread jam, you are really wisest to re-thread your entire machine, cutting your
thread at the spool, taking it all the way out in sewing direction always. That way the lint travels out of your machine
nicely. But then also take the time to check your
bobbin. When I was pulling up my bobbin thread last,
I felt like that bobbin thread was loose. And now look at what we have going on. I’m now seeing that dark blue thread from
the backside show up on the top of the quilt so my fear came true right here. And you can really see it exaggerated in the
stitch points. So I could talk free motion machine quilting
forever. I absolutely love this. And I tell you what, I hope you enjoyed it
as well. So if you will for me, in the comments section
below, ask me some questions and/or ask me or send me some information about what else
you would like to see with free motion. Our goal with Man Sewing here is to offer
this kind of information constantly for you. But I really want to know what you really
want to know. So when you finish up your practice piece,
let me know what you still need to know about free motion machine quilting and we’ll get
it answered for you here at Man Sewing.
