Gravel Road

[jmyhogan]

I most often use the "automatic mode" using the stitch regulator. When I move at a moderate speed or faster, the Millie works fairly smoothly but when I am doing a Pantograph or stippiling where I need to move slowly my machine feels like I am dragging it over a gravel road. I thought that was just the way it worked until I watched the McTavish CD and saw how smoothly her machine seemsd to work, I am wondering if anyone else has had this experience?

[Katydids]

I don't know about it feeling like "a gravel road", but the SR does increase the "drag" on the machine. Have you tried to pick up speed on your pantographs? Your movement will be much smoother if you go at a faster pace. If I try to do pantographs too slow, they turn out looking horrible. I do small stippling in manual mode. It is much smoother.

Patty

[LynnQuilts]

I think it's just the nature of the stitch regulator. When I am doing a detailed design and going very slowly and carefully, it will jump, take a number of tiny stitches, then settle down. I try to go very smoothly, but it still does it here and there. I don't know if anything can be done about it, nor can I compare it to any other machine, since I haven't used them. I think there is just an optimum speed for the stitch regulator, not too fast and not too slow. This is just my opinion, and I would like to be wrong and that there was a solution to our problems!

[sylkamode]

I can say the same for the stitch regulator: I am always working like this. But when I am moving too fast, there are small loops at the back ( mostly with thin backing fabric ), and when I am mooving too slow, the thread breaks.

I always quilt free hand, never with pantographs, because I like to see distortions on a quilt immediately, so I can handle them better.

Sylvia Kaptein

Sylka-Mode

www.sylkamode.com

[kathymartinez]

It sounds like you feel bumps. I know a common cause for this is when the bar in front of the takeup bar is too high. It tells you in the manual how to lower this.

The reason I love my APQS is because the stitches are pretty much perfect. That's an achievable goal.

I talked to a woman one time who complained that her Millie couldn't make circles. It squared of the upper right side of her circles. She had given up or didn't know about adjusting the cams, so she either lived with frustration or sold her machine. I'm not sure which she did. Now that I know what I know, I wish I knew her contact information so we could let her know how fixable her problem is.

[Katydids]

Jim, I think I just experienced your "gravel road". It was not fun.

The seams on this quilt were not pressed well and went every which way! Then the poly bat she provided was fairly thick. Going over the seams was quite a struggle when doing the panto. (I had no problems in the borders) I have never experienced it (the drag) this bad. I wonder if your circumstance was similar, or if you experience this all the time in SR mode. Hmmmm.

Patty

[jmyhogan]

THANKS TO ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE RESPONDED

Patty,

Yes, I do experience it pretty much all of the time if I am moving slowly. It is not so much hard to move (drag), It is that the millie runs VERY BUMPY when moving slowly. It makes the frame shake. That is what I meant when I said over GRAVEL.

Kathy,

My stabilizer bar is a little higher than when I first set up the machine but I had to raise it to give me moer clearance when I raised the head to accomodate the Circle Lord. The Gravel Road effect was there before I installed the Circle Lord and is not worse now than it was before.