When I attend quilt shows, I love to look at how the quilts have been quilted as well as the fabrics! Many are done on long arm machines with intricate patterns, others are simply done, in the ditch, with decorative stitches or straight lines. When I made my first quilt I had no idea how much the quilting process changes the quilt.
How to decide?
This is a quote I found from Mari Martin, ” the pieced top and quilting design are like two individuals who, when discerningly matched, make perfect partners for the life of the quilt. When successfully achieved, the dedicated quilter will enjoy an experience made in heaven”. The rest of the article gives great advice on how to figure it out.
How to do it?
If you’re going to do it yourself, arm yourself with the tools that will help. A quilting table or large dining table to support your quilt. A pair of quilting gloves, to help hold the quilt and keep your hands relaxed.
For straight lines, a walking foot/evenfeed foot or the Acufeed foot (only on specific machines), will keep your layers from shifting.
Thinking about free motioning your quilt? Practice with a pencil on paper first, drawing a design and not lifting your pencil. Watching videos of some experts. Leah Day has some really neat ones! And there are many, many others. A free motion foot/darning foot or a Convertible Free Motion foot AND a low tension bobbin case. This bobbin case has less tension then the regular one and will help to prevent eyelashing on the underside of your quilt.
And then there’s embroidering your quilt! Acufil is available on our MC12000 & 15000. You can cover your entire quilt with stippling and be done in a couple of hours! Try out some outline quilt designs. Your quilt could be done even faster. Check out our past blogs for more info.
How do you quilt your quilts? Please let us know, we would love to hear!
Linda P.
Janome Life 
Linda, I am new to quilting but wanted to use embroidery designs for quilting. I found some designs in JEF file, a Janome file, but cannot find the software to open it. I have a MC9900 which has a place for a memory stick. I would like to open the JEF files on my machine. Any suggestions?
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Hi Rose,
It sounds like you need to ask your Janome dealer (where you purchased your MC9900) for some owner’s classes. They will be able to go over how to load designs onto a USB stick and how to use this in your machine.
You cannot open a design on your computer unless you have embroidery software installed on your computer. OR you would need to load designs which are jef format and are able to fit into the hoops you have on the MC9900 – and then open them at the embroidery machine. That is when you can look at the design. There are, therefore, many advanatges to owning embroidery software. This is just one of them. Please ask your local Janome dealer to explain your options to you but my recommendation would be to ask about Janome Digitizer Junior.
Another option would be to explore AcuDesign App but you would need to own an iPad to use this editing software APP.
There is no Acufil Quilting system available for this Janome MC9900 so you would have to clamp your quilt into one of the hoops which come with the machine. Take care not to strip the screw & nut on the hoop by forcing the bulky quilt between the 2 pats of the hoop.
Hope that points you in the right direction.
Liz
JANOME CANADA
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is janome mc9900 compatable with acufil program
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Hi Linda,
No, it is not.
Liz
JANOME CANADA
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I should have also asked where I can purchase the bobbin case for my Horizon 15000. Can you help me with that?
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Thank you for sharing about the bobbin case. I have searched the internet and my manual trying to find out a part number or even if any such thing existed since I am having a difficult time with the tension while free motion quilting but I could not find any information. You are a wealth of info. Thanks again for all your posts.
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Hi Vicki
So happy to hear you are enjoying the posts!
The low tension bobbin case is available where you purchase your Janome machine. There are 2 of them, one for machines with a thread cutter/bobbin sensor and one for all the other top loading machines. There is a blue dot on it so you don’t get it mixed up with the regular one which has a red dot.
Part no. for the 15000 is 200.445.007 and the other is 202.006.008
Happy stitching! Linda P.
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