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Stitch length - what's your sweet spot?


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I know this has been discussed before - but I can't find the thread (no pun intended!)

 

What is your favorite stitch length - with SR on and SR off.  My Freedom has been really liking it at 10 - but I find that a bit slow.  Any faster - 11 and up gets me thread breakages. 

 

What's your sweet spot?

 

thx

 

Bev

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I'm just wondering why anything over 11 causes you to have thread breakages.  I wouldn't think that should be an issue just from increasing spi?  Maybe someone can clarify the reasoning for me?   I don't have APQS stitch regulation, so my answer probably matters not, but I stitch 10-12 regulated and very seldom unregulated.

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Bev:  It depends on the look you want, and what's being stitched.  I almost never use UR.  If I'm stitching tight archs or lots of short direction changes, I'll use 12 spi, or 16 spi.  If the design has large archs or long lines, I'll go to 8 spi.  My wife likes the looks of the longer stitches and would have me do 8 spi all the time, but that just doesn't work for me.  Jim

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I haven't been long arming very long so I don't know how much stock can be put in my answer - I don't have stitch regulation so everything I do is in non stitch regulated mode...and I do feathers at a 7... detail work at a 4 or 5 ... and edge to edge at a 8 or 9.  I suppose that seems awfully slow and long compared to everyone else but they've been stitching much longer than I so they likely have more control!  :) 

 

When I first brought my machine home it was really hard not to listen to everyone else...after all, they knew more than me so I was all ears!  I was told to stitch faster to get better flow, and it's true!  But I just couldn't get the hang of it until I just did it my own way.  You do get better flow faster...but I find I'm much more accurate at a slower speed and after I built up the muscle to control the machine head I can really move it just fine and get smaller even stitches.

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I like an 11 for SR.  When I use non stitch regulated mode, only for charity quilts, I have to use a 13 to keep my stitches even. Any slower and I have really really long stitches.  DeLoa Jones told me to practice non stitch regulated mode for 10 minutes a day; however, that's hard to do when I have quilts on the frame for days.  Now that I feel more comfortable with feathering, I mainlly do feathers and practice designs on the charity quilts with non SR because I can go faster.

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